Realtime facial recognition cameras used at Super Bowl

[Greg Broiles]

On Fri, Feb 02, 2001 at 09:06:20AM +0000, Richard Lyons wrote:
> 
> I'm new to this list, so hello everyone.  I'm also on the other side of 
> the pond, so I'm interested in what you are recounting.  Here, in the UK, 
> stalking is illegal, so is recording phone conversations covertly.  But 
> the police are installing a network of CCTV -- not the general 
> surveillance cameras in town centres which everyone loves, but a new set 
> of low-level cameras that are directed into the windscreens of vehicles 
> passing.  So they can track exactly who goes where when.  I'm not sure 
> what intelligence they have installed (so far).  In fact, I am not sure 
> of anything about them, because they have never been mentioned in the 
> media, and most people I've talked to haven't even noticed they are 
> there!
> 
> I'm wondering whether to try marketing driving masks...  And whether, if 
> I did, they would be outlawed (on grounds that they reduce driver vision 
> and cause danger, of course).

Well, that's disturbing. I wonder how long it's going to be before
politicians figure out that these cameras will also be revealing the
details of their lives, too - mistresses being driven around at lunchtime,
driving meetings with underworld figures or members of other parties, etc -
people generally expect some privacy while driving, especially if they're
not near home. It does sound like a wonderful way to get blackmail 
material or general intelligence.

I'm pretty skeptical about the idea of the masks - not that they wouldn't
work, in that sure, they'll block your face - but I don't think that people
will start wearing them or buying them. 

Doug Barnes, an early cypherpunk, gave an interesting talk at the recent
Mac Crypto conference regarding the social role of privacy - in particular,
he suggested that people who take steps to preserve their privacy may be
signalling to other potential counterparties (in a variety of social and
business contexts) that they're not trustworthy or fully legitimate .. 
our reactions to those signals may not be occurring at a fully rational
or conscious level. While he suggested some methods for changing that
perception, as a baseline that's a reasonable way to think about how
most of the world views privacy. Even people who are also concerned about
these cameras may be reluctant to buy or wear masks - not because they
like the cameras, but because they don't want to be perceived by their
family and friends as thieves or as untrustworthy people.

Slides from Doug's talk might be online at 
<http://www.io.com/~cman/ps/peoplestupid_files/frame.htm>, though
I haven't been able to get them to load in Netscape under FreeBSD.  

--
Greg Broiles gbroiles at netbox.com
PO Box 897
Oakland CA 94604