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Comment by btbuildem | Hacker News Reader

> with “largely lower-income, non-white neighborhoods” serving as the technology testbed.

There's been plenty of articles pointing out that certain demographics are very under-represented in training sets, leading to all kinds of errors [1] [2].

Technological advances aside, the company should have clearly disclosed their use of facial recognition technology - concealing that raises serious privacy issues.

1: https://www.npr.org/2021/09/04/1034368231/facebook-apologize...

2: https://news.mit.edu/2018/study-finds-gender-skin-type-bias-...

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Is there any law requiring disclosure of facial recognition?

Should there be?

I don't know if there is, but don't think so? I think there probably should be -- but also, it'll be just another fine-print fades-into-landscape thing. All the signs about video monitoring don't really matter much, we just assume there's video monitoring everywhere and don't even notice the signs anymore. I assume facial recognition will soon be the same, unless it is regulated beyond requiring disclosure.

Yeah any warning system will just turn into California’s prop ~~86~~ 65, which led every building in the state to add signage reading “this building may or may not contain cancer-causing chemicals.” Which is completely useless.

Did you mean prop 65? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_California_Proposition_...

Yes, thank you. Corrected!

One difference is that it's hard to know if you have the chemicals in your building, or be able to eliminate them.

Knowing that you have facial recognition and eliminating it is much easier.

Not for any landlord that doesn’t control every business and person in the building.

All it takes is UPS adding facial recognition to driver bodycams or something and suddenly your building has facial recognition in it. Better to just put the warning everywhere and forget about it.

I don't think this is a very good argument. A UPS driver/truck is temporary, and isn't a part of your business. That's like saying you have to put up a Prop 65 disclaimer for your place of business because someones shoes might have a cancer causing chemical in it.

If your place of business is actively adding cameras, and is actively using facial recognition, those are actions that your business has taken. A temporary action of another party should require you to do a disclaimer. Especially if the same action is something they should be disclaiming.

Is it the landlord's job to prevent a tenant from using facial recognition in the tenant's area of the building? I think the tenant is in charge of putting up the disclaimer if the tenant does that.

As for facial recognition in common areas, the landlord can put a clause in the lease agreement requiring tenants not to do that.

If disclaimers are required for facial recognition and a UPS driver has a facial recognition bodycam, I assume it'll be the UPS driver that needs the disclaimer, not every place the UPS driver visits.

Eliminating it by a customer is a rather tough sell.

Eliminating either by the customer is very difficult. You can try boycotting or contacting the owner to complain. Even then, removing the chemicals is even more difficult, because even if your boycott gets the attention of the owner, the owner will have a harder time removing the chemicals than removing the facial recognition.

True in theory, but is the chemical composition of a building really more complex than the software installed in a building? I feel like theres some 2nd law of supply chains that guarantees that every supply chain --physical or sofware-- will grow in complexity beyond auditability.

The software is in some hardware. The hardware can be seen and removed, and can be known when it's removed.

A chemical can't be seen, and can't be removed.

And even if the hardware is super entwined with the building, making it hard to remove, such as tied in with the HVAC system, there likely will be some toggle switch to turn off facial recognition. There's no toggle switch to remove chemicals.

https://imgur.com/hiUqXuK

There are a number of state laws but the last time I checked the one in Illinois (which requires affirmative consent to do facial recognition) is the only effective one because it contains what’s called a “right of private action” - if the state does not sue a company you (each individual plaintiff) can sue for $5k statutory damages (which can make class actions a huge threat even to rich tech cos).

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/30/opinion/illinois-biometri...

I think there definitely should be. I wouldn't want to set foot in a place that did this, and would be really angry if I discovered that a place was secretly doing this because it would rob me of my ability to protect myself.

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