We trust an enormous amount of data to the federal government, and until recently, that privacy risk was mitigated by the fact that the branches did not automatically share data with each other.
Now, they are trying to vacuum it all up, and increase the power of the government.
Why should the federal government have my driver’s license photo anyway? That’s through the state. And even if they did, why should I give them easy access to an updated photo of me, cross referenced with my name and identity?
If the answer is it speeds up the TSA’s job and makes them more accurate, I don’t think that’s a compelling enough reason for me personally to give up that little bit of privacy.
If this is for surveillance, it’s an absolute nothingburger. Your face is public data, not something protected by privacy. Period. Your boarding pass is already tracking your location at a specific time, so the photo doesn’t do anything about tracking either. The only practical use for this is quick identity verification.
I will be very happy to change my mind if someone can give me a specific privacy violation, but no one has said anything except vague murmurs about “tracking”.
No my face is not public data. While I may choose to appear in public with my face, if a private party wants to use my likeness, in advertising for example, they have to get my consent. It’s not in the public domain, unless I’m a celebrity. I see no reason why we should just roll over and allow anyone to use our faces for any purposes without contesting it.
If some government spy wants to make a dossier on me, it would be easy to hire a photographer to take a recent photo. But they can’t do this on a large scale. What they can do is pay a company that already has a model of my face, which I object to, and then they can try to run facial recognition algorithms on anyone who turns out at a demonstration, for instance.
I can only mitigate the threat of public photos of myself so much, like not having photos on social media or LinkedIn. Maybe someday I’ll be able to opt myself out of facial recognition databases.
Choosing not to let the TSA routinely take a high quality photo of my face is just a small way to mitigate against how many facial recognition databases I’m in, and how high quality their models are.
If any of this is wrong I would be glad to be corrected.
Incorrect, your face is public data. The consent forms for model are the use of your likeness for commercial purposes which is a very different context.
Whether it is for commercial advertising purposes or commercial surveillance purposes, I don’t see why surveillance should have less protection.
So far you are all saying this is not correct, but without some kind of documentation it seems like companies and governments are seeing how far they can go before getting pushback.
No the problem is you dont understand what is being said when ‘public data’ is being talked about.
Data is public if you can freely access it, which I can access information about your face simply by being in the same public area as you. Hell you fucking posted it on Facebook probably for anyone to grab from anywhere.
Your face isnt a privacy problem.
your face is on your license, they already have a db of our faces.
your name was on the ticket, they already know where you were.
If you wanted to push back on your face as private data, the time to do that was many decades ago.
But your major issue is you dont understand terms and definitions.
You are playing fast and loose with your assumptions.
“They” do not have a database of our faces. More specifically, states do, at the DMV, and the US state department does, for passports. Also, private companies do, harvesting publicly available photos from Facebook, etc.
A few years ago this was no big deal, and lots of people tagged pictures of themselves, but now that facial recognition algorithms are here, we have to start thinking about how to mitigate the privacy concerns.
There is a big privacy distinction between looking at someone’s face, and taking a picture of it.
Your face is not public data, you are just wrong. Stop.
Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA)
Citation: 740 ILCS 14
Key Points:
Prohibits private entities from collecting, storing, or using biometric identifiers (including face scans) without informed written consent.
Includes the right to sue for violations (statutory damages of $1,000–$5,000 per incident).
Relevant Cases:
Facebook settled a $650 million class-action lawsuit in 2020 for violating BIPA via its facial recognition feature.
Your face is not public data, there are literal court cases showing this. A simple Google search would show you this. Sit down and stop spreading misinformation.
In my opinion, the privacy violation would be taking my biometric data without my consent (e.g. facial geometry, fingerprint, blood, dna/genetics, etc.) While yes my face is public, I’d rather not give them a high-res facial geometry map that gets fast-tracked directly to a database.
Making it harder for them makes them put in the effort to track or profile people which does not eliminate the problem, but does make it more difficult and thus more resource consuming for them, especially if many people do the same
Why would you defend this?
We trust an enormous amount of data to the federal government, and until recently, that privacy risk was mitigated by the fact that the branches did not automatically share data with each other.
Now, they are trying to vacuum it all up, and increase the power of the government.
Why should the federal government have my driver’s license photo anyway? That’s through the state. And even if they did, why should I give them easy access to an updated photo of me, cross referenced with my name and identity?
If the answer is it speeds up the TSA’s job and makes them more accurate, I don’t think that’s a compelling enough reason for me personally to give up that little bit of privacy.
If this is for surveillance, it’s an absolute nothingburger. Your face is public data, not something protected by privacy. Period. Your boarding pass is already tracking your location at a specific time, so the photo doesn’t do anything about tracking either. The only practical use for this is quick identity verification.
I will be very happy to change my mind if someone can give me a specific privacy violation, but no one has said anything except vague murmurs about “tracking”.
Now if they require you to unlock your phone? Yeah. That’s a BIG fucking privacy violation.
No my face is not public data. While I may choose to appear in public with my face, if a private party wants to use my likeness, in advertising for example, they have to get my consent. It’s not in the public domain, unless I’m a celebrity. I see no reason why we should just roll over and allow anyone to use our faces for any purposes without contesting it.
If some government spy wants to make a dossier on me, it would be easy to hire a photographer to take a recent photo. But they can’t do this on a large scale. What they can do is pay a company that already has a model of my face, which I object to, and then they can try to run facial recognition algorithms on anyone who turns out at a demonstration, for instance.
I can only mitigate the threat of public photos of myself so much, like not having photos on social media or LinkedIn. Maybe someday I’ll be able to opt myself out of facial recognition databases.
Choosing not to let the TSA routinely take a high quality photo of my face is just a small way to mitigate against how many facial recognition databases I’m in, and how high quality their models are.
If any of this is wrong I would be glad to be corrected.
The fact that you don’t like your face being public data changes nothing about whether or not it actually is public data.
Just because you say it is public doesn’t make it so.
The fact that you have to sign model consent forms is proof enough that it’s not public.
Incorrect, your face is public data. The consent forms for model are the use of your likeness for commercial purposes which is a very different context.
Whether it is for commercial advertising purposes or commercial surveillance purposes, I don’t see why surveillance should have less protection.
So far you are all saying this is not correct, but without some kind of documentation it seems like companies and governments are seeing how far they can go before getting pushback.
No the problem is you dont understand what is being said when ‘public data’ is being talked about.
Data is public if you can freely access it, which I can access information about your face simply by being in the same public area as you. Hell you fucking posted it on Facebook probably for anyone to grab from anywhere.
Your face isnt a privacy problem.
If you wanted to push back on your face as private data, the time to do that was many decades ago.
But your major issue is you dont understand terms and definitions.
You are playing fast and loose with your assumptions.
A few years ago this was no big deal, and lots of people tagged pictures of themselves, but now that facial recognition algorithms are here, we have to start thinking about how to mitigate the privacy concerns.
There is a big privacy distinction between looking at someone’s face, and taking a picture of it.
I reject your terms and definitions.
Your face is not public data, you are just wrong. Stop.
Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA)
Citation: 740 ILCS 14
Key Points:
Prohibits private entities from collecting, storing, or using biometric identifiers (including face scans) without informed written consent.
Includes the right to sue for violations (statutory damages of $1,000–$5,000 per incident).
Relevant Cases:
Facebook settled a $650 million class-action lawsuit in 2020 for violating BIPA via its facial recognition feature.
Your face is not public data, there are literal court cases showing this. A simple Google search would show you this. Sit down and stop spreading misinformation.
In my opinion, the privacy violation would be taking my biometric data without my consent (e.g. facial geometry, fingerprint, blood, dna/genetics, etc.) While yes my face is public, I’d rather not give them a high-res facial geometry map that gets fast-tracked directly to a database.
Making it harder for them makes them put in the effort to track or profile people which does not eliminate the problem, but does make it more difficult and thus more resource consuming for them, especially if many people do the same