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Comment by tinyhouse | Hacker News Reader

Instead of fixing issues like bias with facial recognition, they prefer to ban it instead. And Illinois of all places, where the crime is out of control. Who will suffer the most? you guess it right, those who they are trying to protect... Go figure.

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I don't think bias is the main problem with FR. I think the problem is more of the police performing mass FR. Although perfect FR by a (fictional) benevolent police force could allow much easier capture of all criminals, I think most Americans are more afraid of an all-powerful police force made possible by FR than they are of the status quo that many criminals go uncaught for a long time (and possibly forever). And I think that the militaristic behavior of cops and police departments have earned that.

The (hopefully) hyperbolic version of this fear is: Say you were wanted for a crime, and nobody believed you (or perhaps you're guilty but it's a BS law). If it's perfectly legal for them to do so, maybe the cops will just fly a killdrone over places you're known to frequent and shoot you on sight, and say 'Gee, sorry if you were offended, but (Name) was a dangerous criminal, wanted for terrorism and refused to turn himself in, we had no choice.'

>Illinois of all places, where the crime is out of control

Is it? From what I've found Illinois is fairly middle of the pack vs other states.

Much of the state is peaceful, balanced out by high crime rates in parts of Chicago and in mid-sized cities (Rockford, Aurora, Peoria, Springfield.)

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