Realtime facial recognition cameras used at Super Bowl

[Adam Shostack]

On Thu, Feb 01, 2001 at 11:56:14AM -0800, Greg Broiles wrote:
| 
| According to the LA Times at 
| <http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/updates2/lat_cameras010201.htm>,
| police used real-time face recognition systems to scan the faces
| of about 100,000 people who attended the Super Bowl in person. The
| cameras were hidden. 19 people with "criminal histories" were 
| identified, but no arrests were made.
| 
| The article quotes usual suspects like Bruce Schneier, Cliff Stoll,
| and Erwin Chemerinksy saying that the system is troubling, as well
| as an Oakland Raiders official who views it positively.

One of the more troubling (to me) things is Chemerinsky's comment that 
people have no expectation of privacy in public.  The idea that you
may follow someone around with a video camera, take mm scale radar
pictures through their clothes, etc, etc without their permission
because they are in a public space is simply wrong.

The free-speech-chilling nature of this technology should be clear.



-- 
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."
					               -Hume