Facebook Weighing Up Legality of Facial Recognition in Upcoming Smart Glasses

[svanstrom]

As far as I know, Facebook currently only compares your photo to your friends list, and possibly only a subset of those friends. It would be quite a feat to compare it to its 2.8 billion active users in real time.

There's no need to do something like matching against someone last seen in Tokyo when you're in Oslo, and so on; so we can extremely quickly get those 2.8 billion down to something that easily is matched in real-time. By the time you'd have to do anything close to computational hard work you could be down to less than 100 people; and with the processing happening on the client device.

 

[rafark]

100% would not trust Facebook with this technology. This is a product killer for me.

Don’t worry you don’t have to use it to be a part of it.

 

[Alan Wynn]

But why? Presumably you'd already know what the people in your address book look like.

Several benefits even for people in one’s address book:

1. Remind one of someone’s name in case one has forgotten (especially for those with face blindness).
2. Remind one of last phone call or meeting date (again just in case one has forgotten).
3. Remind one of the person’s spouse’s name, bf name, gf name, kids name, etc.
4. Log that you saw them so you can ”remember” for your next conversation.

People with assistants already have this “functionality” and this would democratize this.

I wonder what "nice use cases" the Facebook goon has in mind. I wouldn't want to have a conversation with anyone who's wearing AR glasses.

It would depend on how they worked. AR glasses that did local recognition and did not record video without a specific action and indicator (like that on the Snap Spectacles) would be fine with me. Something that streamed the video feed to Google or Facebook? Not going to happen for me.

 

[Alan Wynn]

If you’re in a big crowd, you might not notice someone, and the glasses could give you a notification - “____ from your contacts is here”

This would particularly valuable at trade shows, conferences and big parties.

 

[Victor Mortimer]

It should be legal to punch somebody wearing these, then stomp the glasses to powder.

Or just permanently ban off-device facial recognition. Either way.

Seriously, the technology is simply too dangerous. It's not a big issue if it's in something like a secure enclave where it can never leave a device, but we all know that's not what F*c*book is going to do with it.

 

[Alan Wynn]

Every engineer I know looks stuff up, yet we seem to do fine designing CPUs containing billions of transistors.
Every lawyer I know looks stuff up, yet we seem to do fine arguing in court, writing persuasive briefs, etc.

A friend of mine was a senior manager on a team interviewing a candidate for a position developing CG related applications. The interview was in the conference room that held the team’s library (wonder if those still exist).

My friend ask a question about how the candidate would implement some function and the candidate replied can use use a reference book. My friend said sure. To which the candidate replied: “It is the third problem in Graphics Gems Volume 4 on the shelf behind you. I would just copy it from there.”

They hired the candidate.

 

[omihek]

Notice they're questioning whether or not they should let anyone opt OUT of having their face tracked and recognized. I guess they've already moved far past considering only tracking those who explicitly opt IN.

 

[now i see it]

I'll just leave this quote right here

"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."

[Dr Ian Makcolm: Jurassic Park]

 

[Suckfest 9001]

I mean I’m a pro at wearing masks at this point. If Facebook rolls this out I guess it’s masks from now on. Utter invasion of privacy.

 

[dannyyankou]

Facial recognition in AR glasses connected to your Facebook profile is a stalker’s dream.

 

[truthertech]

It’s almost like they want to gather data about you and sell it...

It’s much worse than that evil goal. They will be capturing massive data on everyone around you. This will be streaming the location, what people are wearing, what people are doing, who they are associating with, what they are saying, etc., on the wearer AND the people around them.

 

[fernelius]

Facebook needs to drop this project immediately. I can just imagine Facebook adding eye tracking technology as well -- tracking every item we gaze at, how long we gaze at it, the level of pupil dilation when we view it, etc... They'd love all that info, and it would be disastrous to all of us.

 

[Alan Wynn]

I mean I’m a pro at wearing masks at this point. If Facebook rolls this out I guess it’s masks from now on. Utter invasion of privacy.

Does it bother you if it is on-device with a local database only? I do not have much of an issue with the recognition itself, only with any service creating a geo tagged log of every where I was. This would especially be an issue if it can work with the data from all of these so that I get no only the data from my device, but from yours and everyone else’s.

 

[Alan Wynn]

Facial recognition in AR glasses connected to your Facebook profile is a stalker’s dream.

How? Stalkers do not need to face recognition, they know who they are tracking. What does this enable that was not available before?

 

[cmaier]

How? Stalkers do not need to face recognition, they know who they are tracking. What does this enable that was not available before?

I’d be worried about being stalked by facebook employees

 

[opcodegames]

I just wonder who would trust FB to use one of their glasses?

 

[svanstrom]

I just wonder who would trust FB to use one of their glasses?

Maybe you have to buy and wear them to get access to the opt-out button?

You would of course have to be extra tracked and scanned for that to work, but by using the opt-out button you are strongly indicating a desire for them to not use that data in any non-essential ways.

 

[shplock]

This spells trouble and has all the ingredients of authoritative control.

Can you imagine if this went ahead, here is what I envision happening.

You are wearing the glasses and a guy walks past you, the glasses perform facial recognition and discovers he is a member of the Republican Party and thus you suddenly get bombarded with message about how you should start a conversation with him, that he is absolutely amazing even though it turns out he is a mass murderer!

Meanwhile you walks past a woman and the glasses once again perform facial recognition and is labelled as Democrat so the glasses tell you she is the very embodiment of pure evil despite the fact she is a decent human being!

Then when you get home you are bombarded with adverts in your computer browser for products that happen to be sold by every shop you walked past.

You constantly get pestered for friend requests by every weirdo who is wearing the glasses because...you know...Facebook!

Your every contact with another person is recorded and catalogued then sold to some developer/government agency/ Trump!

I see nothing but bad news here!

 

[shplock]

Maybe you have to buy and wear them to get access to the opt-out button?

You would of course have to be extra tracked and scanned for that to work, but by using the opt-out button you are strongly indicating a desire for them to not use that data in any non-essential ways.

That has never stopped FB before!
They do not seem to know the word privacy.

 

[shplock]

I'm actually working on something that would tie in nicely with this; and sort of give an abbreviated update about a person.

So if you were to meet me your glasses could show my latest social media updates, and stuff like that.

That absolutely would not be used by every weirdo ever to spy on any attractive woman/guy they meet in the street to stalk them would it!

 

[shplock]

I think it would still be useful - not to tell me who the person is, but to tell me information about the person that I might not remember. “Wife’s name is ____.” “Has been working at Big Co. since ____”. “Has __ kids and a pet ____”

It could also gather information about the encounter, to be stored on-device for my own later use. “You last saw ___ on Dec. 2, 2020, at this location ____”

If you’re in a big crowd, you might not notice someone, and the glasses could give you a notification - “____ from your contacts is here”

That sadly would be used to stalk every person by every weirdo!
It would be used by corrupt cops and anyone who hates the idea of privacy.

 

[shplock]

Don't ignore us that already have forgotten everything about you, and can't even place or name you if we meet outside of the usual setting where we meet; we need this.

Don't ignore the people who will use this to stalk and harm people such as that abusive ex who just can not accept that they got dunped and how dare the ex change and hide their social media profile!

 

[svanstrom]

That absolutely would not be used by every weirdo ever to spy on any attractive woman/guy they meet in the street to stalk them would it!

Don't be a paranoid loon; I wrote that I'm working on something, I didn't write that I'm working on a security and privacy nightmare to fanservice stalkers.

 

[cmaier]

That sadly would be used to stalk every person by every weirdo!
It would be used by corrupt cops and anyone who hates the idea of privacy.

You obviously didn’t read my post or what I was responding to.

On-device recognition of people already in your contacts list is what we were talking about.

But thanks for the FUD.

 

[shplock]

Don‘t be silly. Einstein couldn’t remember his own phone number. This sort of nonsense has been said since the dawn of the computer age. They used to say it about calculators, too. Free your brain up for important stuff - making decisions and problem solving. Recall of facts that are easily looked up is something with which one doesn’t need to concern oneself.

Your London taxi driver example is proof: when was the last time anyone needed to know, from memory, the best route to a random address in a big city? Even before GPS we had maps - are maps evil too?

Every engineer I know looks stuff up, yet we seem to do fine designing CPUs containing billions of transistors.
Every lawyer I know looks stuff up, yet we seem to do fine arguing in court, writing persuasive briefs, etc.

We don’t live in an age where the ability to remember every tiny little fact is of much use.

Don't be silly! It is a well known part of Neuroscience!

It is called use it or lose it!

It is a part of a larger frame work called elasticity!

Sorry but you are wrong and I am right.