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Comment by delichon | Hacker News Reader

The green box around his face in the image is evidence that it detected a face, but not that it had collected or stored identifying biometrics. It would be legal for a POS device to detect any face, e.g. to help decide when to reset for the next customer. But as I understand it, this would usually be enough to trigger discovery, where he could learn the necessary technical details.

Even if this suit fails, the store is vulnerable to continuous repeats by other parties. Written consent from each customer is the only viable protection. So the BIPA law may mean that face detection, not just recognition, is not practical in Illinois.

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How does one find out whether Home Depot is merely detecting faces or storing biometrics?

Answer: File a lawsuit and use discovery to find out.

this means you're guilty until proven otherwise, does it not?

I'm pretty sure just like free speech, innocent until proven guilty is for the government/court, not a random person on the street. If you want to assume someone is guilty of something you are allowed to do so and you can sue too. Otherwise the prosecution would have to go to jail every time the defense wins.

No, it means courts can be used to find out if someone is guilty.

I was wondering this as well. The green box could simply indicate it detected a face, using something like YOLO, or even a simpler technique like some point-and-shoot cameras use to decide where to focus (on faces, obviously).

It still "recognizes a face" and shows this. Legal terms do not have to be scientific or engineering terms.

Detecting a face is not the same as recognizing a face in either engineering parlance or typical usage.

If I don't determine this is a face that I've seen before, I've not recognized the face (maybe I have recognized that there is a face there).

To recognize entails re-cognizing: knowing again what was previously known. Simply noticing that something is a face does not satisfy that; it is only detecting. Without linking it to prior knowledge, recognition hasn’t occurred.

but just think about other things.

Like the google 'incognito' mode that wasn't private browsing, and google was found guilty.

engineers might say "of course it's not private" but the court opinion differed.

common sense to a normal person might not match engineer thinking.

Is this coming from legal definitions?

Because, one of the valid dictionary definitions of "recognition" is simply acknowledging something exists. No prior knowledge needed for that, other than the generic training the facial detection software has undergone.

This is not how dictionaries work. When multiple definitions are given, it does not follow - and in many cases, it is not even possible - that they are all applicable in any context.

Ignoring context leads to things like "English as She is Spoke" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_as_She_Is_Spoke

Decent dictionaries give some guidance as to the contexts in which each each definition is applicable, but for thoroughness you probably cannot beat the unabridged Oxford English Dictionary.

The relevant definition here is neither legal nor technical, but from common usage, where recognizing a face, if not qualified, is taken to mean recognizing an individual by their face, not recognizing that you are seeing a face.

The courts may disagree. That's why I'm curious if the comment was from a legal context. If we had prior case law of them distinguishing one definition in favor of another, I'd feel more certain about all the assertations being made. If there are no cases, then the courts could interpret however they want in conflict of your entire comment.

> ...the courts could interpret however they want in conflict of your entire comment.

Courts sometimes adopt tendentious, cotroversial or disputed definitions in their rulings, and law-makers sometimes (and more frequently) do so when writing the law, but that in no way invalidates what I have written, which is about how to use a dictionary.

The total options for dictionary terms for "recognition" does not mean that you can select any among them, decide that that's what "facial recognition" means, and expect anyone else to understand you.

"Facial recognition" refers to seeing a face and knowing whose face it is. It's the difference between "that's a face" and "that's my friend Jeff".

That some constituent word has some other definition is not relevant. What you're doing is equivalent to reading "my nose is running" and thinking "egads! This person's nose has sprouted legs and taken off down the track!"

Sure it does. I can use words any way I want. But there are agreed upon legal definitions and there are agreed upon industry terms/definition; you are talking about one of them (which sounds like industry not legal). If there's no legal definition, that means it's not defined and the court could interpret it any way they choose.

Edit: it seems the law defined the term "facial recognition" so that was the only answer I was seeking

> Sure it does. I can use words any way I want.

You can do that, but I hedged my statement with:

> and expect anyone else to understand you

under which constraint, you're incorrect.

There's a relevant quote from Lewis Carroll's Through The Looking Glass:

> "When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."

My or Humpty’s ability to choose meaning doesn’t ensure the listener will understand it the same way though. Even if you do expect someone to understand and feel appropriate context is present, misunderstandings occur regularly in all types of communications due to this very thing.

I have no idea what you just said. If I look up each of the words you just typed in the dictionary, they all have multiple meanings. Multiply that together, there are literally billions of combinations. There's no way for me to know which you meant.

In other words, to put the burden on the listener rather than the speaker to be clear about meaning, is bad communication.

Words have a definition and a connotation, and meaning is inferred from context cues. What a word means is based on its prevailing word in this context.

No one reasonably uses "facial recognition" or "I recognized a face" to mean "I detected that there was, indeed, a face there."

In this case, the statute doesn't even say "facial recognition". It discusses storing a "scan of face geometry" such that it identifies an individual, and clarifies that an ordinary photograph doesn't count.

Ok if the law defines the term, that answers my question. I wasn't sure what level of grey area connotation was being discussed.

The lawsuit alleges that they also collect the facial details, of which the green rectangle is no evidence. But maybe they'll look into it and find that this is indeed the case.

If it's not clearly defined then it would be subject to debate in court, and you could admit expert evidence of what facial recognition is to define it

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