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posted by janrinok on Thursday June 18 2015, @05:22AM   Printer-friendly
from the being-two-faced dept.

Our Cameras didn't see you at Church Today

http://churchix.com/ Facial recognition software is being sold to churches to take attendance.

Churchix is a face recognition event attendance desktop application. Churchix identifies event attending members in videos and photos. All you need to do is enrol high quality photos of your members into the software data base, then connect a live video USB camera or upload recorded videos or photos – and Churchix will identify your members!

Churchix is designed for Church administrators and event managers who want to save the pain of manually tracking their members attendance to their events.

Facial-Recognition Talks Collapse over Privacy Issues

Privacy campaigners have walked out of talks aimed at creating a code of conduct for companies keen to use facial-recognition technology.

In an open letter, the groups said they had quit because of "fundamental" differences over use of the technology. And there had been little prospect that the talks would have produced "adequate protections" for citizens. People deserved better protection than the talks had been likely to have produced, they said.

The discussions, brokered by the US National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), the body that oversees technology policy issues, began in February 2014. Nine separate privacy groups, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Center for Democracy and Technology, were invited.

But the groups' letter said the companies involved had refused to accept they needed prior permission from people being identified by the technology. At a "base minimum", said the rights groups, people should be able to walk down a street without having to worry that companies unknown to them were tracking them and trying to work out who they were.

"Unfortunately," read the letter, "we have been unable to obtain agreement even with that basic, specific premise."

Let the "A Scanner Darkly" references roll!


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Appalbarry on Thursday June 18 2015, @07:39AM

    by Appalbarry (66) on Thursday June 18 2015, @07:39AM (#197714) Journal

    In related news, the cops at the UK "Download" music festival scanned the faces [engadget.com] of all 90,000 customers last week!

    The battle has been lost Winston.

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by sudo rm -rf on Thursday June 18 2015, @08:00AM

    by sudo rm -rf (2357) on Thursday June 18 2015, @08:00AM (#197721) Journal

    That brings very unpleasantly Pink Floyd to my mind:

    Are there any queers in the theater tonight?
    Get them up against the wall!
    There's one in the spotlight, he don't look right to me,
    Get him up against the wall!
    That one looks Jewish!
    And that one's a coon!
    Who let all of this riff-raff into the room?
    There's one smoking a joint,
    And another with spots!
    If I had my way,
    I'd have all of you shot!

  • (Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Thursday June 18 2015, @09:51AM

    by wantkitteh (3362) on Thursday June 18 2015, @09:51AM (#197739) Homepage Journal

    Do we know what they did when they got a hit against their database of criminals?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2015, @03:09PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2015, @03:09PM (#197836)

      That person was never seen again.

  • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday June 18 2015, @12:00PM

    by kaszz (4211) on Thursday June 18 2015, @12:00PM (#197766) Journal

    I think I just had an instant Zentai fetish! ;-)

    Perhaps makeup also will be popular now?

    • (Score: 1) by darnkitten on Friday June 19 2015, @01:05AM

      by darnkitten (1912) on Friday June 19 2015, @01:05AM (#198054)

      They'll just back off a bit and do anthropometric ID instead of facial recognition--or start scanning for IR or other invisible spectra.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Friday June 19 2015, @02:13AM

        by kaszz (4211) on Friday June 19 2015, @02:13AM (#198066) Journal

        Use flash mobs to assemble and be gone before any recognition equipment can be setup? And "nice surveillance equipment you got there.."

        As for the direct counter act. Use aluminum lining and inlays in the shoes etc.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Thursday June 18 2015, @01:12PM

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Thursday June 18 2015, @01:12PM (#197786) Homepage
    The authorities claim nothing was recorded/stored and taken away from the event. There's one way to test that out - ask for a copy of the captured footage, which by law they have to give you. They can compound their press-statement lie with a lie in an official response, in which case heads really ought to roll when it's found out, *or*, they were actually just doing what they were saying, which is effectively just automating standard police work, and less of a worry. You wouldn't have to give me particularly long odds before I'd bet on compounded lies being the reality.
    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves