Comments on: Surveillance technology

By: bad Jim

bad Jim — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 08:04:31 +0000

Biometrics are great for positive identification, for validating that someone is who they claim to be, because the initial and subsequent observations can be performed under controlled conditions.

It seems entirely likely that the popularity of (and concern over) hoodies in the U.K. is related to the ubiquity of cameras there. (Signs in London commonly say something like “Privacy Notice: camera in operation” which is roughly backwards; when you see the notice your privacy is history.)

As for the ability to disguise facial traits: dark glasses effectively prevent the observation of any features of one’s eyes, their color, shape or spacing, and somewhat obscure the nose as well. Large, fluffy beards, not currently in fashion, alter the appearance of one’s jaw and chin, which is probably why I first grew mine.

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 07:16:04 +0000

The programme dealt with the issue John Q asks about (you can check the transcript). Shuffling as a countermeasure led to a decline in the number of players. The programme claimed this was because shuffling took time and the players got bored. I’d have thought a more plausible explanation was that players knew that the odds were being shifted against them and declined to play. The casino wants to keep those players playing, just in the case where they aren’t actually sophisticated enough to exploit their advantage.

By: Tom T.

Tom T. — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 00:17:37 +0000

The false-positive objection does not strike me as enough in itself to disqualify this system from use at airport security, since the current system is set up to generate essentially 100% false positives anyway. Certainly, the facial-recognition software could not replace security checkpoints, but it conceivably could be used to refine the selection of travelers who get singled out for extra searching. I don’t know how such selections are currently made; whether it’s random or whether there are factors, like one-way cash-purchased tickets that figure into the mix, but it strikes me as at least feasible to incorporate facial recognition. Obviously, there would be a host of practical questions, as others have pointed out. What would it cost? How would the database be populated? Etc.

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 23:55:08 +0000

Totally off the main topic, I’ve never really understood why casinos persist in offering games that a skilled player can win without cheating. In the case of blackjack, all that’s required to stop cardcounting is to change/shuffle decks more often.

No doubt they attract a few would-be card counters who overestimate their skills, but I would have thought that would be outweighed by negative publicity, of which the story above is a modest example, not to mention the losses to undetected cardcounters.

By: Barry

Barry — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 21:10:44 +0000

Probably because such systems have the potential to track a very large number of people almost as well as if each subject had a large team of followers. And can store, retrieve and match movements of many people in a very short period of time.

By: Steve

Steve — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 18:22:18 +0000

“I hasten to state that the civil liberties implications of any such system are horrendous.”

Why do you believe this? How does it differ (in civil liberties terms) from the (US) method of putting Wanted posters in post offices? Or mugshots/witness sketches being broadcast on the news? Is it because it is far more effective (though the posts here suggest that it is not very effective at all)? Faster? More people looked at? Something else?

Steve

By: jane adams

jane adams — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 17:47:37 +0000

Actually I believe the technology has been employed at some sports events for some criminal searches. Presuming skilled and experienced securit officers are on hand to double check and confront suspects it might be useful. But lots of things might be useful.

But at this time besides the tradeoff of civil liberties the trade off of resources is: do you put uniformed and plain clothes security (and good ones do remember lots of pictures) out on the floor or behind cameras? Probably both. But there is really a lot to be said for skilled people looking and feeling, sensing and yes even smelling, gently probing with stares and possibly questions people coming by.

By: kevin

kevin — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 17:00:21 +0000

“For example, there is nothing at all that can change how far apart your eyes are from one another, or widen the bony bridge of your nose, or widen your jawbone.”

Not even stage makeup? Mind you, I have no idea how easily seen through stage makeup would be on someone up close, but I would think that it would be possible to change the appearance of some features enough to fool these kinds of remote systems.

By: jim in austin

jim in austin — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 16:52:01 +0000

Be on the lookout for subway passengers wearing red rubber clown noses…

By: Harry

Harry — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 16:10:40 +0000

Wait—what is this RCP? I thought they disbanded, and became libertarian pro-Serbs and started writing columns for The Times. Or is that in bizarro universe?

By: msw

msw — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 16:10:05 +0000

I was an integrator for a large facial recognition project, adding a third-party facial recognition vendor’s product to our customer’s security system. My experience matched the ones reported by sien’s link – it just doesn’t work. And we had absolute control over the initial template capture – we could specify the exact lighting conditions, camera vendors, capture angles, head positions, etc – we weren’t trying to match against yearbook photos. Still, the error rate was so high that the system was worthless. The guy in charge of security had a stuffed doll with thick plastic novelty glasses that he kept on his desk – it matched his facial template better than his own face did.

This was one vendor’s product, but the industry is more incestuous than you might think – a lot of vendors are just licensing some other vendor’s technology. And I haven’t heard many success stories.

I’m a little suspicious of the casino’s claims.

By: jacob

jacob — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 15:53:29 +0000

Two minor and perhaps obvious points: One is that the consequences of a false positive in the casino are far less than the consequences of a false positive for policing. Falsely identifying an MIT student or alum as a card counter results, at worst, in that person being denied the ability to gamble that evening—hardly the end of the world. Falsely identifying someone as a terrorist leads at best to reduced mobility (which leads to an potential inability to make a living) and political repression—and at worst, it can lead to death, as Jean Charles de Menezes discovered last week.

The second point is that the casinos almost certainly violated copyright laws in using the facebook the way they did. Most modern university face books which I’ve seen say they are only for private, personal, or university use, and specifically ban commercial use, which the casinos’ use falls under.

By: paul

paul — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 15:20:05 +0000

The false-positive rate for the casinos, given the other circumstances, may not be that high—of the MIT students and grads who don’t card-count, it might well be that not too many go to the casinos, and not that many of those sit down at a blackjack table and start engaging in sophisticated play.

As Jim points out, it’s all about the protocol that the system is embedded in. And given the recent tragic killing in the London Tube, we seem an awfully long way from a good protocol even without scaling problems.

By: Barry

Barry — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 15:05:43 +0000

Matt, they probably figured that excluding students (and grad students) from certain schools is not a big loss. If they’re smart, they ascertain ID’s for matches, and match that with lists of rich people. Those students who have the DiLithium Amex cards (courtesy of rich parents) could be ID’d before contact is made. That way, the casino could avoid booting out people who have real money to lose.

By: Matt Austern

Matt Austern — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 14:48:25 +0000

Possibly that excerpt is misleading (I’d imagine casinos aren’t going to give detailed and true information about their security procedures), but if it’s taken seriously, what it means is that the casinos have decided to ban anyone who attends MIT, anyone who used to attend MIT, and anyone who looks like anyone who attended MIT.

This is a tremendous false positive rate. The fraction of MIT students who are card counters is small. Most MIT students, surprisingly, can’t even pick locks or scale walls.

Accepting a tremendously high false positive rate may or may not be acceptable for the casinos. If this excerpt is to be believed, they’ve made a business decision that it is. It probably is less acceptable for law enforcement.