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from the false-positives-are-a-bad-thing-said-one-of-the-twins dept.
If you've watched any sort of spy thriller or action film over the last few years – think Jason Bourne or Mission: Impossible – the chances are you've seen facial recognition software in action. These movie scenes often involve an artist's sketch compared to mug shots, or sometimes even a live CCTV stream, and with the clock ticking, a match is usually found for the culprit in the nick of time.
It seems natural then to assume that what happens in the film world is similar to what happens (most of the time) in the real world. We might think that our faces are constantly being tracked and recognised as we walk past security cameras in city centres – but this is not actually the case.
Not only would such a system require millions of cameras capable of producing high-quality footage, but it would also require the integration of photo-ID databases such as mugshots from every police force, previous passport images, and driving license images for everyone in the country.
And yet even if this high level of integration was possible, a far more basic problem still exists – facial recognition systems are still not 100% accurate.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Friday December 16 2016, @04:20PM
> That photo ID database is called Facebook.
Nope, not this side of the pond anyway. UK (in fact possibly all EU) passports and driving licences already require digital photos suitable for extracting biometrics - and the database of images is shared (last time I renewed driving license I was able to tell them to use the passport photo on file, or maybe it was other way round). Facial biometrics from the photos are actually encoded in passports, automatic facial recognition is used at E-gates for entering the country.
> That's not the real problem, everyone knows that many people have lookalikes and so it's easy to understand the limitations.
The real problem, as with a lot of things, is that even if they are understood it is easier to _ignore_ the limitations in order to get "results". If you are one of six possible matches to a face on CCTV and you happen to be the easiest one to track down and you can't prove you weren't in the vicinity, it is just so much easier for the authorities to totally forget the other five possibilities ever existed - you are the suspect of least resistance.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 17 2016, @12:05AM
Nope, not this side of the pond anyway. UK (in fact possibly all EU) passports and driving licences already require digital photos suitable for extracting biometrics - and the database of images is shared (last time I renewed driving license I was able to tell them to use the passport photo on file, or maybe it was other way round). Facial biometrics from the photos are actually encoded in passports, automatic facial recognition is used at E-gates for entering the country.
So even the supposedly privacy-friendly EU engages in these unethical practices? These facial recognition databases simply shouldn't even be exist. If you abuse your toys, they get taken away, and governments have shown they can't be trusted with such toys.