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a letter from the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles informing him to cease driving because his license had been revoked.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."
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?
Re:Guilty until proven innocent (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Re:Sounds Like a Good System (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: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.
Re:Guilty until proven innocent (Score:3, Insightful)
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 that institution from 2006 until just recently, how exactly is it that he was getting his Eeeeevil work done? Really. Please provide the details, which should be fascinating.
Re:It's a growing list (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:It's a growing list (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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).
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.
Rachel Kaprielian needs to be fired NOW (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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.