Let’s hear it for the Surveillance Society:
Privacy advocates used Amazon’s facial recognition to scan thousands of random faces around Capitol Hill in Washington DC to highlight the dangers of this technology’s surveillance capabilities.
While walking around, the team found the facial recognition successfully identified a congressman, but also claimed to spot Roy Orbison – an American singer who died in 1988.
The demonstration was a message to Congress to ban the technology, as there’s no law preventing people from scanning your face without your consent anytime you step out in public.
Hey, I’m pretty sure that ol’ Roy did a few regrettable things in his lifetime (bonked underage groupies, etc.) so now that the gummint has found evidence of his “existence”, they can do a little retroactive post-mortem prosecution. I’ve seen worse.
What I wanted to see was that the software identified someone who was provably somewhere else at the time — so that in times to come when this bullshit is used by the cops to break an alibi, the evidence can get tossed out of court.
“What I wanted to see was that the software identified someone who was provably somewhere else at the time”
Well, given that Roy’s been quietly moldering for a few decades, they’ve already done that, Kim.
Don’t count on this staying flawed. One of these years, it will be as accurate as human observation, and probably more reliable (the camera never has to sneeze, blink, or go to the john).
Also, even with flaws, it’s a useful way to monitor large numbers of people. If the video is recorded, the hit can be manually verified.