Facial Recognition Gone Wrong 375
An anonymous reader writes "John H. Gass hadn't had a traffic ticket in years, so the Natick resident was surprised this spring when he received a letter from the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles informing him to cease driving because his license had been revoked. It turned out Gass was flagged because he looks like another driver, not because his image was being used to create a fake identity. His driving privileges were returned but, he alleges in a lawsuit, only after 10 days of bureaucratic wrangling to prove he is who he says he is. And apparently, he has company. Last year, the facial recognition system picked out more than 1,000 cases that resulted in State Police investigations, officials say. And some of those people are guilty of nothing more than looking like someone else. Not all go through the long process that Gass says he endured, but each must visit the Registry with proof of their identity. Massachusetts began using the software after receiving a $1.5 million grant from the US Department of Homeland Security as part of an effort to prevent terrorism, reduce fraud, and improve the reliability and accuracy of personal identification documents that states issue."
It's a growing list (Score:2)
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in Massachusetts, it's who you know
And here I was thinking the key question is whether your last name was "Kennedy".
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Please stop saying that identity can be stolen. If someone makes themselves look like you it is impersonation. If they use information associated with you to bamboozle the weak-ass authentication used by financial institutions, it is fraud.
In neither case has your identity been stolen. A man's wife would not sleep with a different man simply because the second man had a bank account in her husband's name, and so on.
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A man's wife would not sleep with a different man simply because the second man had a bank account in her husband's name
I think you underestimate what some women would do for money.
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I was commenting about the authentication done by banks, not the expected behavior of the baser members of the species (I would clarify that I believe there are many men and women willing to nearly anything for very little).
Nice work. (Score:5, Insightful)
Massachusetts began using the software... to prevent terrorism, reduce fraud, and improve the reliability and accuracy of personal identification documents that states issue."
Came up snake-eyes on that role, dincha?
Urg. (Score:3, Informative)
And I cut myself with my own rapier wit by messing up a quote tag and using the wrong homophone.
Coffee needs to brew faster...
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Coffee needs to brew faster...
great stuff [ineedcoffee.com] :)
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It is well known that machine-vision is still rather dodgy outside of well-controlled applications(pick-and-place? the puny humans might as well surrender. general purpose object recognition in cluttered environments? not quite so good.); but it is also known that humans are quite fallible, and generally more fallible than they think.
An anecd
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The anecdote doesn't tell you much, but the state probably is not going to release any information on the false alarm rate among the software's detections. Doing so would reveal how much of a waste the money was.
This kind of system tends to suffer badly as the database size grows, because the false alarm rate per comparison tends to grow with the number of templates (which is probably the number of people with driver's licenses), and the number of comparisons is proportional to the square of the number of
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It always just makes me nervous to see arguments pro or con complex systems based on an
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Heck, there's a guy in our office who looks like Obama, but he's never even been near Kenya.
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Hell they completely struck out 0 of 3. The only point that might be in question would be the fraud but I would argue that fraud was committed when the purchased the product since it doesn't deliver what it promises. If it can't correctly match faces how could it be expected to prevent terrorism, reduce fraud, and increase accuracy of identification. I will believe that facial recognition will work once we can get OCT that works on typed (not even hand written) text that has an accuracy of 100% until then software like this should be considered if junk if the false positives are greater than the true positives.
This is especially true since there are negative consequences for the individual who was flagged as a false positive.
Re:Nice work. (Score:4, Insightful)
Massachusetts began using the software after receiving a $1.5 million grant from the US Department of Homeland Security as part of an effort to prevent terrorism, reduce fraud, and improve the reliability and accuracy of personal identification documents that states issue.
Why am I not surprised? The system probably returns the first 'hit' in the database. Okay terrorists - new strategy: Change your name to something at the tail end of the alphabet.
Guilty until proven innocent (Score:5, Informative)
Kaprielian said the Registry gives drivers enough time to respond to the suspension letters and that it is the individual’s “burden’’ to clear up any confusion. She added that protecting the public far outweighs any inconvenience Gass or anyone else might experience. “A driver’s license is not a matter of civil rights. It’s not a right. It’s a privilege,’’ she said. “Yes, it is an inconvenience [to have to clear your name], but lots of people have their identities stolen, and that’s an inconvenience, too.’’
Re:Guilty until proven innocent (Score:5, Insightful)
Oblig. Star Trek reference (Score:5, Insightful)
you're guilty until you prove your innocent
...because it would be unfair to put an innocent person on trial.
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Re:Oblig. Star Trek reference (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to work with fingerprint identification systems for some police forces, and that's how they do it. AFIS systems are only a tool to narrow down and (enormously) speed up the candidate search process. The decision to declare a match is ALWAYS up to a human expert, after careful review of the results from the system.
The only kind-of-exception to this are from portable devices the police uses for example at football matches, on which they have loaded the patterns for wanted persons. They scan everyone going into the stadium, and if they got a match (automatic, 99.9% accurate, but false positives ARE possible), the person is taken into the nearest police station for a more serious AFIS check, with an expert determining if there's a match.
Instant revoking of licenses or serious decisions like that shouldn't be left to automatic systems, no matter how accurate they might be. This has to be always a human decision, and one of the main reasons is that humans have to take responsibility for their actions and can be held accountable. The identification system is just a tool to help people do their jobs better/faster (not to do it for them).
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Who said anything about imprisonment or fines? they just get their prints checked by an expert to confirm the match. It takes at most a couple of hours.
So, you're saying that they take the prints at the gate and then let the fellow into the stadium while checking them?
Or do they take the person in to the station (holding him there against his will) until the print check is over (and so is the event that the person was going to)?
He's confined for "a couple of hours" and is out the money he spent on the ticket.
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I thought the legal system in America had changed some time ago from the ideal of "innocent until proven guilty" to "innocent until proven broke".
I just hope Leonardo DeCaprio stays out of trouble (Score:2)
Because he could really drag me down with him.
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According to the statement you're guilty until you prove your innocent, so much for innocent until proven guilty.
I don't like the cavalier attitude of the statement either -- after all, this fella lost wages because he drives for a living.
That said, this has nothing at all to do with the principle that, in criminal cases, the prosecutor must prove guilt.
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I think that if the state of Massachusetts is OK with a few false positives, it should be OK with paying out a few tens of thousands of dollars each time a false positive dramatically inconveniences someone.
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Take for instance, the situation where a cop needs to give someone a ticket for a broken tail-light. The ticket coming from the cop needs to carry a presumption of veracity, otherwise it would be very impractical for cops to ticket anyone.
Are you aware that when a cop writes a ticket for a broken tail-light, that is equivalent to when a cop arrests someone for murder? In both cases, one must still choose to either plead "guilty" or "not guilty". In the case of the ticket, the penalty for pleading guilty is pre-determined and all one needs to do is mail in a check along with the ticket signed that you are pleading guilty. If you plead "not guilty", you need to provide some evidence that the police officer is lying about the broken tail-light,
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If you plead "not guilty", you need to provide some evidence that the police officer is lying about the broken tail-light, just as you would if the cop claimed to have seen you kill someone and you were pleading "not guilty".
The trouble with both arguments is the presumption that if it's your word against the cop's, the cop wins by default. That makes life convenient for the cops, but it's not as if there are no bent ones out there or they're somehow immune from making mistakes.
The cop should be required to provide evidence, beyond taking his word for it, that your tail light was faulty. It's not that hard to snap a photo or send a video from his dash cam.
Re:Guilty until proven innocent (Score:4)
According to the statement you're guilty until you prove your innocent, so much for innocent until proven guilty.
Welcome to the result of 10 years of Bush rule. (Yes that colossal waste of tax dollars and abuse of power that is called Homeland Security was created in the Bush era)
TFTFY, 'cause, to be fair, the current leaders have done nothing but continue to rubber-stamp all those "patriotic" abuses and outright violations of our civil rights.
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From this side of the pond, it seems that DHS is now the problem. Apologies for the slightly glib comparison, but tens of thousands of people's lives have cumulatively been wasted in the queues that are there* to stop people's lives being wasted.
But like reducing sentences for criminals, politicians fear the pointy-finger of blame from the media if anything happened on their watch after the DHS was scaled down. It would be up to the populace to stand up and say "It's a risk we'll take."
*queues have to be pa
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was created in the Bush era
It was created by congress. Of course you know that, and are just hoping that nobody else actually understands how things work.
I'm also curious what magical power you think that The Eeeevil Bush had, after leaving office, that allowed him to prevent a complete lefty/Democrat monopoly of power in the legislative and executive branches from altering the policy and funding of the agency you're whining about. If it was Eeeeevil Bush who controlled congress even though ultra-liberal Nancy Pelosi actually ran
Re:Guilty until proven innocent (Score:4, Insightful)
When it comes to oppressing citizens, the vast majority of Democrats and Republicans are happy to show their support. For instance, the original USA PATRIOT Act was passed with exactly one vote against it in the Senate (Russ Feingold D-Wisconsin), and been renewed with overwhelming bipartisan support on two occasions, with signatures from President Bush and President Obama.
So you can't absolve either major party from blame here.
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Pelosi isn't a liberal, she just plays one. She's a corporatist, just like Bush, Obama, and just about everyone else in Washington.
So (a Republican) Congress, in partnership with Bush, created DHS. Then, Democrats took over in '07. Then Obama took over in '09. What's changed? Absolutely nothing. What does this mean?
Simple: there is ZERO difference between the two parties. They're both working for the same corporatist agenda. The only "difference" between the two is which groups they pander to. One
Re:Guilty until proven innocent (Score:5, Insightful)
So says the government(s). I disagree. Just because something isn't specifically protected by the Constitution doesn't mean it isn't a right. Travel by the standard means of the time (in this case, automobiles), is a natural right. Also, it is nice that a system used to "prevent terrorism" is being used to suspend driver's licenses of ordinary, non-terrorist, citizens.
Government(s) in the US are at flank speed ahead towards power and control. Even the court system is on their side (e.g. imminent domain for increased tax revenues from a few years back, recent rulings about police entering homes w/o warrants in IN, etc., etc.). In the end, it is all about the $$$. Where is it, who has it, and how can we get more of it.
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> Travel by the standard means of the time (in this case, automobiles), is a natural right.
There's also the bit in TFA about the guy driving as part of his job. Many western jurisdictions have some concept of a "right to make a living"...
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someone got up on the wrong side of the keyboard today
Re:Guilty until proven innocent (Score:5, Informative)
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You don't need a license to drive a car. You need a license to drive a car on a PUBLIC ROAD. You have an inherent right to drive. When you want to drive in a public place, you have to prove that you meet certain standards for the safety of other public road users (thus the driving test). A license is not a "gift" from the government, it is in fact a responsibility that the government has ensured you are a safe vehicle operator. Eventually this has turned into
an identification card, which if you think about it is pretty weird.
I have had numerous government licenses over the years, amateur radio license, student pilot license (which at that time was just an instructor signed 3rd class med cert), fishing license, parking permit at govt facility, a security pass at an army base, and none of them had the overhead of being "identification".
Probably time to separate the concept of driver license and id card.
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It may be considered a split hair in Massachusetts, but it's a fact of life on family farms -- you don't need a driver's license to operate farm machinery like tractors on private property, which is why you'll still see children too young to get a driver's license out on the family tractor harrowing a field.
Consider what a 'split hair' it is that motor vehicles operated on private property also are not required to comply with licensing, emissions, or safety laws, which is how the entire automobile racing in
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So by their own admission, their error is comparable to stealing someone's identity. And they don't see this as a problem.
Is there anything bureaucrats can't cock up?
Re:Guilty until proven innocent (Score:4, Insightful)
Is there anything bureaucrats can't cock up?
Breathing. Otherwise they wouldn't live long enough to make our lives so difficult.
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Therefore you have no rights while you are driving on a public thoroughfare.
And people STILL dismiss "slippery slope" arguments.
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The right to travel unmolested by car should, inded, be a civil right.
Driving licenses exist because most people want to travel unmolested by a car ;). And so it is a privilege.
You can still travel unmolested by car without a driving license, as long as someone else does the driving.
FWIW it's still a very easy privilege to get. if you want to kill somebody, you do it with a car: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ex6dHzcgOE [youtube.com]
From what I gather the driver was "given a 12 month sentence suspended for two years, 200 hours community service, ordered to pay £500 compensat
Identity Theft? Way to Aim High (Score:4, Insightful)
“Yes, it is an inconvenience [to have to clear your name], but lots of people have their identities stolen, and that’s an inconvenience, too.’’
So their defense is to list crimes that are worse than what they (law enforcement) are doing? I guess if you aim low, there's no chance of failure.
So if I went up to someone and said, "Hey, I know you think I'm a jerk because I call you harmful names but lots of people get raped in a parking lot and that's harmful too." They should thank their lucky stars I'm just calling them names and not raping them in a parking lot? Isn't that more of a threat than an excuse? I don't get it, is the Registry of Motor Vehicles threatening to steal or sell everyone's identity if they don't like being wrongly accused?
Facial recognition is not quite yet where it has to be. I worked on some of this stuff way back in college and the case studies we did on open face databases had abysmal recall rates [wikipedia.org]. Basically it should be concluded that until your chance of a false positive is equivalent with winning the lottery, you shouldn't implement this. I say "winning the lottery" because it is such a terrible violation of rights that you should be prepared to pay out a million dollars to the poor citizen that is wrongly accused of some crime or infraction just based upon the features of their face. It's a high stakes game and if you're going to use it as a short cut, you better be prepared to accept a high amount of risk.
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So their defense is to list crimes that are worse than what they (law enforcement) are doing?
"Your Honor, it's true that I've stolen millions of dollars, and beaten people to within an inch of their lives, but remember that there are people out there who have KILLED hundreds of people!"
"You know, you make a really compelling argument there. You're free to go."
or, does this only work if you're in the government?
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Re:Guilty until proven innocent (Score:4, Interesting)
I think that some people need to make masks that look just like Kaprielian, and probably her boss, and some of the local senators, and get "caught" by some of these cameras doing something that results in automatic suspension of a license. Then we'll see how long the "It's just inconvenient" attitude lasts.
In Michigan several years ago they passed a law that allowed a policeman to cut up your driving license right in front of you if you were caught driving drunk. That law was struck down as being unconstitutional, because even though the cop was right there and could smell the alcohol on your breath and hear your slurred speech, a cop is not judge and jury; you still have a right to due process under the law. If that was unconstitutional, I can't see how this isn't as well.
I've got nothing to hide (Score:5, Insightful)
... except my face apparently.
Anyone still wondering why privacy is such an important issue? I never want to hear the "I have nothing to hide" argument again.
Re:I've got nothing to hide (Score:4, Interesting)
I tried explaining the TSA mess to my sister and mother this weekend. They said it sounded terrific that they were checking elderly people with diapers and making wheel chaired bound people prove they needed a wheelchair.
Mother: "We'll be safer."
Sister: "I have nothing to hide."
Me:"Terrorists have announced plans to start trying to hide bombs surgically implanted in their skin."
Mother: "So... they have to perform surgery mid-flight to blow themselves up? *laugh*"
Me: "Remote detonation. First time they catch someone attempting this the TSA will start requiring medical records if they see an operation scar."
Sister: "So what? I got nothing to hide. In fact, I think it is a good idea for them to have our medical records to make sure our flights are safe."
They are the first to Google people, gossip, etc. My sister has been caught looking at homes with binoculars at night. When a family friend joking texted her saying he could see her at night you'd be surprised how fast her translucent curtains were replaced with thick drapes. Some people don't care about privacy until it affects them.
Re:I've got nothing to hide except my face (Score:3)
All you IAALs out there, can we get some ThisIsAdviceButNotLegalAdvice?
Motorcycle riders would escape this system, wouldn't they? And they are almost the only group allowed to wear helmets.
I thought I read (but it may have been an unreputable source) that we are allowed to wear helmets while driving our cars. Is that true? Or do the other characteristics of driving cars such as different view ranges negate that legality?
What if a cop pulls you over and actually states that he doesn't like you wearing your h
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maybe I read a different article but the description sounds like a database search; they compared copies of the license pictures and similar pictures were selected.
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wanna bet that someday
1 when you get your motorcycle endorsement you will have to report to the office WITH YOUR HELMET(s)
2 they will issue you (and charge you for) some sort of bar code sticker to be placed on your helmet so that photo id systems can recognize (you)
3 make it illegal to use an "unregistered" helmet
heck this would even be useful if they did a check of the helmet at the same time (for fitness of use ect)
In other news (Score:4, Funny)
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Pastafarianism will solve this (Score:5, Funny)
All you need to do is wear a welding mask as your Pastafarian religous headwear.
It works in Austria. G'day mate.
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So then one Pastafarian bad driver will cause all of the others to lose their licenses.
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There is so much wrong with this post I don't know where to begin. It's like you picked a handful a meme and got everything about it wrong.
Or, he was going for a "Dumb and Dumber" reference and got everything about it *right*...
you know who else didn't know where to begin? (Score:2)
thats right. adolph hitler.
"I don't know where to begin"
-- Mein Kampf, 1987.
That was right before he killed all the Muslims.
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It works in Austria. Sers Oida.
FTFY
FTFY.
in defense of intrusive bungling bureaucracy (Score:4, Funny)
Massholes do all drive in the same aggressive manner
(I keed, I keed!)
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The difference between a Boston driver and a New York driver: The New York driver takes a right turn from the left lane at 45 mph honking and giving you the finger. The Boston driver does the same thing, but is also drinking coffee, reading the paper, and talking on his cell phone.
Pictures or it didn't happen! (Score:2)
Problem with face recognition (Score:4, Informative)
The problem with all of these algorithms is that it doesn't matter how accurate they are, they are only ever going to be a way to reduce the search space - you should never base a decision solely on the algorithm telling you "this is person X".
For example, some sales person says "Hey I've got this great facial recognition software it is 99.99% accurate!" (that's better than most facial algorithms out there) sounds pretty good right! - Wrong!. Suppose you set it up to look for one terrorist at Heathrow airport. The system is likely to flag up 650 000 people a year (based on 65 million passengers a year); of course it gets even worse if you start looking for more people.
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Except that it is only 6500 people a year, you are right.
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Give it 10,000 people to look for (Which the US No Fly list will soon have) and it could flag everybody as someone on the list ...
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"Suppose you set it up to look for one terrorist at Heathrow airport. The system is likely to flag up 650 000 people a year (based on 65 million passengers a year)"
Eh, probably not, as many of those people are repeat visitors, and the guys who you arrested because they looked like your terrorist are unlikely to come back and try again :) //And of course if your terrorist is non-white you can reduce your search space significantly on that as well.
Bayesian statistics (Score:5, Interesting)
I work for a company that develops neural network software which is used for face recognition on a number of airports. The problem we've had over and over again is that government officials and airport security personnel have great difficulty understanding some elementary statistics.
Let me give you an example. One version of the software offers 99.99% accuracy (symmetrical true positive and true negative), a number that always seems very impressive to various officials.
What they don't understand and what we have to remind them all the time is that they need to take into account the large number of faces that are scanned by the software and that a 0.01% false positive rate isn't something you can ignore.
For instance in a large airport that has say a million people getting scanned yearly it means that 100 people will be incorrectly flagged by the system. The prior probability that a traveler is a 'person of interest' is less than 1/100,000. Plugging the number into Bayes' theorem you get that when the system flags a passenger, the probability that the passenger was actually a person of interest is around 9%.
The officials typically only listen to the 99.99% figure and ignore the reality of the relatively large numbers of false positives when dealing with huge numbers of people. Subsequently they treat the people the systems flag much worse than they would if they realized that the probability of a 'catch' being correct was less than 10%. We've done our best to try to educate them but usually they don't want to listen as it's an uncomfortable truth and it's much more convenient to say that the system has an accuracy of 99.99%.
Re:Bayesian statistics (Score:5, Insightful)
If the 99.99% figure is apparently misleading, and if the 99.99% figure is apparently the only one that the politicians look at, stop presenting the 99.99% figure!!!
Re:Bayesian statistics (Score:5, Insightful)
The 99.99% figure is the only one that is reliable. The 9% figure depends on things that vary over time outside the control of the company selling the software, i.e. the proportion of true terrorists (or other true targets) in the passenger stream.
The problem is the education system, that doesn't teach even basic numerical reasoning to people who need to use it all the time.
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I wouldn't call the Base rate fallacy [wikipedia.org] basic numerical reasoning. I didn't learn about baysean probability until my senior year, and I didn't hear about the base rate fallacy until I was a researcher.
Maybe a better technique would be to say there's an "effective true positive accuracy", which varies depending on the circumstances. Maybe have it as a feature of the software, that
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The 99.99% figure is the only one that is reliable. The 9% figure depends on things that vary over time outside the control of the company selling the software, i.e. the proportion of true terrorists (or other true targets) in the passenger stream.
You're a typical scientist. You have 1 figure which is always reliable and true, but it is misleading. The other one depends on too many variables but is a lot more insightful. The scientist will choose the first misleading figure, all other people would go for the second. Adapt to your audience: present a simple case in which you can calculate the useful figure.
The problem is the education system, that doesn't teach even basic numerical reasoning to people who need to use it all the time.
Changing the educational system will only give results in 20-25 years, if not even more. That doesn't mean we shouldn't change it... but it does me
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In defense of the politicians, they aren't as bad at math as it might first appear. Remember, they're looking at the systems and factoring in the money that will be added into their political campaigns. Approving the systems might also multiply their opportunity to land cushy lobbying jobs after they leave office. As a bonus, approving this subtracts any chance that their opponents could call them weak on terrorism. Thus, these systems get their undivided support.
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If the 99.99% figure is apparently misleading, and if the 99.99% figure is apparently the only one that the politicians look at, stop presenting the 99.99% figure!!!
The skillset required to be a successful politician has a very small overlap with the population that can actually understand higher mathematical concepts (like the result of the application of fractions to large numbers).
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I work for a company that develops neural network software which is used for face recognition on a number of airports. The problem we've had over and over again is that government officials and airport security personnel have great difficulty understanding some elementary statistics.
Let me give you an example. One version of the software offers 99.99% accuracy (symmetrical true positive and true negative), a number that always seems very impressive to various officials.
What they don't understand and what we have to remind them all the time is that they need to take into account the large number of faces that are scanned by the software and that a 0.01% false positive rate isn't something you can ignore.
For instance in a large airport that has say a million people getting scanned yearly it means that 100 people will be incorrectly flagged by the system. The prior probability that a traveler is a 'person of interest' is less than 1/100,000. Plugging the number into Bayes' theorem you get that when the system flags a passenger, the probability that the passenger was actually a person of interest is around 9%.
The officials typically only listen to the 99.99% figure and ignore the reality of the relatively large numbers of false positives when dealing with huge numbers of people. Subsequently they treat the people the systems flag much worse than they would if they realized that the probability of a 'catch' being correct was less than 10%. We've done our best to try to educate them but usually they don't want to listen as it's an uncomfortable truth and it's much more convenient to say that the system has an accuracy of 99.99%.
Stop selling them you shit software!
Think a minute before you serve up the tools needed for a authoritarian police state on a silver platter. Do you want to be responsible for the destruction of the last remaining bits of freedom in America? No? Then why are do doing it?
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Stop selling them you shit software!
Think a minute before you serve up the tools needed for a authoritarian police state on a silver platter. Do you want to be responsible for the destruction of the last remaining bits of freedom in America? No? Then why are do doing it?
Too true - I wish I had mod points for you. It seems that most commenters are arguing about the math or the technology. Not nearly enough of us are addressing the issue of just how seriously fucked up it is that this kind of situation is even allowed to occur.
draper? batelle? (Score:2)
you work on the Future Attribute stuff?
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You should just have your software flash a big sign saying "Probability of match: 9%". I don't see how they could ignore that.
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The prior probability that a traveler is a 'person of interest' is less than 1/100,000.
That high? Maybe in the general population 1 in 100,000 are being oppressed by the govt. Think about it, if you know that you'll be oppressed, you wouldn't go to the airport...
So either most of the people being oppressed are innocent thus not expecting to be oppressed, or are too stupid to accomplish anything evil, in which case they're also irrelevant.
Is it even possible to accomplish anything with a system like that?
The other problem with 1 in 100,000 being oppressed is that my local "big" airport proce
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The ironry of the /. quote (Score:2)
Another way to look at the stats (Score:2)
"Last year, State Police obtained 100 arrest warrants for fraudulent identity, and 1,860 licenses were revoked as a result of the software, according to Procopio."
Okay, so that sounds to me like a 94.7% error rate among the positives. Unless they just kind of said, to over a thousand people with fraudulent licenses, "Oh, that's okay...just stop doing it, and we'll let it slide"?
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1860 licenses out of what, like 4 million registered drivers? So, like 99.95% of the voting public wasn't directly affected and we got 100 bad guys! Sounds like a win - from a certain point of view.
It will probably continue to happen until somebody gets complacent and doesn't notice that a major politician's wife or daughter got snagged by the system and lets their license get revoked...
He missed a trick... (Score:2)
Let Clarkson show you how it's done:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3i-HRxf8z4#t=04m39s [youtube.com]
(Skip to 4:39 if the link won't do it for you.)
This is my generation's fault (Score:3)
Computers used to be tools used by a minority of professionals and hobbyists. But for almost 20 years now, certainly for the last 15 years, computers have become ubiquitous -- practically everyone in the United States has one on their desk and/or at home. And yet, after all these years of working with computers, people still naively, stupidly, assume that any output from a software program is 100% accurate and trustworthy. "The computer says it is so, therefore it must be true."
My unscientific, gut feeling is that this is a distinction within my generation -- the generation which is now running things -- who grew up with simple devices like digital watches and foolishly have extended the reliability and accuracy of those baubles to machines and software which they barely comprehend.
I hope and pray that the next generation, my daughter's generation, who have grown up with spam, spoofing, malware, faulty operating systems, and software inaccuracies, will have the intelligence to treat software as a useful tool to help us make decisions, rather than as founts of truth that make our decisions for us.
Rachel Kaprielian needs to be fired NOW (Score:3, Insightful)
I missed something. (Score:3)
Massachusetts began using the software after receiving a $1.5 million grant from the US Department of Homeland Security as part of an effort to prevent terrorism, reduce fraud, and improve the reliability and accuracy of personal identification documents that states issue.
In what way is using this technology to issue speeding tickets preventing terrorism, reducing fraud, improving the reliability and accuracy of personal identification documents?
If the money really was earmarked to be used in that specific way, I think somebody has some 'splainin to do.
my evil(?) twin (Score:3)
According to the clerk at a convenience store near my house, there is someone who looks just like me and comes in all the time to buy cases of Bud Light. He commented on it because I was purchasing a six-pack of a local craft brew, instead of "the usual". Granted, the consequences aren't quite as harsh as being misidentified as a chronic traffic violator, but being mistaken for a Budweiser fan is almost as offensive.
Re: (Score:2)
terrorists.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
âoeWe send out 1,500 suspension letters every day,â(TM)â(TM)
"Neither the Registry nor State Police keep tabs on the number of people wrongly tagged by the system. But Gass estimates in his lawsuit that hundreds might have received revocation notices in error since the system was installed."
That's a DAY. Do you really believe that only 2 of them are problems? Most are probably just fixed without people making a big stink because they are used to the government screwing up.
Re: (Score:3)
They don't give numbers for Mass but they do for NY.
New York detected roughly 3,500 instances of possible fraud, resulting in 600 arrests since a system was adopted in 2010.
Looks like about 80% fail rate to me.
Re: (Score:2)
Sure. And it also depends on whether "detected" is the ones left after throwing out all of the obviously wrong results. The numbers could be off either way.
not to me (Score:2)
they spent millions of taxpayer dollars for a system that has no proven benefit, all it does is further erode civil liberties which 'our brave men and women in uniform' are said to have died to defend.
Re:Nothing to see here...move along (Score:5, Insightful)
Being a member of a functioning society means you need to participate -- check your mail and respond when asked reasonable questions by state authorities...
A computer says I look like a lawbreaker, so I have to take time off work and get myself to a government office with my ID in order to prove the computer wrong. In what non-Fascist, non-totalitarian country is this a 'reasonable question'?
To me, this is about as 'reasonable' as having to be fondled and/or irradiated to board an airplane. This 'functioning society' is growing more disfunctional with each passing day.
Re: (Score:2)
It's actually about 5 business days.
Letter dated Mar 22, with a suspension date of Apr 1
Arrives at his PO box no earlier than Mar 24
Take out the weekend, and that leaves Mar 25 & 28-31
5 businsess days.
Yes, the other guy did get it done in the window. But that still seems a pretty short timespan for notification of a license revocation.