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It’s too late: Face recognition is everywhere
Mike Elgan at Computerworld just tweeted a link to a breathtaking article in The Guardian that claims
Approximately half of adult Americans’ photographs are stored in facial recognition databases that can be accessed by the FBI, without their knowledge or consent, in the hunt for suspected criminals. About 80% of photos in the FBI’s network are non-criminal entries, including pictures from driver’s licenses and passports. The algorithms used to identify matches are inaccurate about 15% of the time, and are more likely to misidentify black people than white people.
Mike has an earlier post on the subject of face recognition, with a humbling two-step way to identify lots of people — down to their street address. (I didn’t realize that Family Tree Now has built up a formidable, freely accessible list of residential addresses.)
Tinfoil hat time.