Germany Interior Minister Pushing For Deployment Of Facial Recognition Software In Public Areas
from the StasiTV dept
Facial recognition software is the wave of the future present. The FBI -- acting without a required Privacy Impact Assessment -- rolled out its system in 2014, finding that a 20% false hit rate was good enough for government (surveillance) work.
Following in the footsteps of Facebook, governments slanting towards the authoritarian side (that's you, Russia!) have deployed facial recognition software to help ensure its citizens are stripped of their anonymity.
Other governments not so seemingly bent on obedience to the state have done the same. UK law enforcement has quietly built a huge facial recognition database and Brazil experimented with police equipment that would turn officers into Robocops -- providing real-time facial recognition to cops via some sort of Google Glass-ish headgear. If what we know about facial recognition software's accuracy rates holds true, the goggles will, indeed, do nothing.
Germany has maintained an arm's-length relationship with its troublesome past. The Stasi and Gestapo's lingering specters still haunt current legislators, occasionally prompting them to curb domestic surveillance efforts. Concerns for the privacy of its citizens has also sometimes resulted in the government making angry noises at tech companies it feels are overstepping their boundaries.
Four years ago, it demanded Facebook destroy data on German citizens in its facial recognition database. Judging from the current push by German officials, it could just be thata the government didn't want any competition.
Speaking to the Bild am Sonntag newspaper, [Interior Minister] Thomas de Maiziere said internet software was able to determine whether people shown in photographs were celebrities or politicians.
"I would like to use this kind of facial recognition technology in video cameras at airports and train stations. Then, if a suspect appears and is recognised, it will show up in the system," he told the paper.
This move towards a more Stasi-esque surveillance system is, of course, prompted by recent terrorist attacks in Germany. Nothing propels bad legislation and lowers the price on domestic surveillance real estate more efficiently than tragedies -- especially those "claimed" after-the-fact by members of the Islamic State.
For those more concerned with lonely baggage, the government is all over that, too.
He said a similar system was already being tested for unattended luggage, which the camera reports after a certain number of minutes.
The lesson here is never forget where you set down your duffel bag -- unless you like watching it being detonated by security teams from a safe distance.
As for the dystopian future awaiting Germans as their government does all it can to help the terrorists win, the Interior Minister offers this shrug of a statement:
"We will have to get used to increased security measures, such as longer queues, stricter checks or personal entry cards. This is tedious, uncomfortable and costs time but I don't think it's a limitation of personal freedom," he said.
Longer lines and more "papers, please" -- just the sort of thing that will push memories of Nazi Germany and the Berlin Wall into the background.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: facial recognition, germany, surveillance
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
"For the Fatherla- I mean National Security!"
Good to hear, in that case I propose that the first buildings these security measures are installed in are government ones. If terrorists want to make a statement a government target is a pretty obvious one I'd think, as such clearly the first people that should be 'protected' by those measures are the politicians.
I've no doubt that in the name of security the various politicians will have absolutely no problem being run through metal detectors, pat-downs, required to carry and present identification at numerous checkpoints around and inside the government offices, and be tracked via camera and RFID chips built in to their required identification everywhere they go within and near the buildings.
It's for security after all, who could possibly object to that?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: "For the Fatherla- I mean National Security!"
Keep in mind that legislators only complain when the other person is in charge. When they're on top they aren't concerned.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: "For the Fatherla- I mean National Security!"
The government has reason (as unreasonable as it is) to fear the public, especially when they encroach on 'their' territory.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: "For the Fatherla- I mean National Security!"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
My parents made a point of telling my siblings and I that we were seeing history in the making as we watched coverage of the wall coming down. For those in the east, life was going to change for the better as they would get to enjoy all the freedoms the west had to offer.
After all the propaganda about how terrible life was in the east (they used to spy on each other!), it turns out the western side of the wall was just envious of the techniques the east side got to deploy, and was taking notes on what worked and what didn't so they could do it better.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It's also makes for nicely concentrated targets for the sort of terrorist attacks they think or pretend they can prevent.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I imagine they've moved right along in the last thirty years.
I keep expecting trouble, someday. A guy named Hassan Nasrallah has been near the top of the Most Wanted Terrorist list for a long time. Unfortunately, though he is Lebanese and I'm Irish/Cherokee, a roll of the genetic dice makes us the next thing to identical twins.
There might be 7 billion humans on Earth, but there aren't 7 billion unique faces...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Response to: TRX on Aug 26th, 2016 @ 2:33am
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
It's the natural inclination for governments. The only way to counter it is for people to push back.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
There are billions of people in the world and at even 99.9% accuracy.... there are millions of innocents fucked over by it all.
No, it will not be 99.9% either. Like all other tools used by government... it's mistakes will be used as an excuse to "visit" innocents for the purposes of a shake down.
I would feel sorry for those poor citizens, but...
"Every Nation gets the Government it deserves!"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
uh, not you, ma'am. i meant this one. this is the one the state needs to know about.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Good Ole Germany
The thought of WW2 being nothing more than a Shadow Victory is fucking sickening!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Misreading
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Misreading
It's how you soften the blow.... *snicker*
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
20% false positives? pls check math
When 1000 people us the train to get to work and are scanned in the train station then the systems shows 200 warnings? Then when they arrive at their destination they are scanned again and this system sends 200 warnings too?
And in the evening it sends another 400 warnings?
So 800 warnings per day per 1000 people using the train to get to work.
Given that the minister mentioned that they know of 500 potentially dangerous people who the system would scan for that system seems ineffective.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: 20% false positives? pls check math
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: 20% false positives? pls check math
You assume those people controlling this system are rational. My guess is they add those people to the list of possible offenders. After all, a system that cost you a huge amount of money and produces additional costs each year can't be wrong, right?
Heck back in '01-'03 it was enough to give soldiers a deck of cards to cover all terrorists and now there are what? 10.000+ people on the list?
Unless a system produces results it gets shut down so guess what, it produces results no matter what.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: 20% false positives? pls check math
[ link to this | view in chronology ]