Could Facial Recognition Become the Next Emergency Broadcast System

The Emergency Broadcast System (EBS), a communications system which allows the government to commandeer radio and television broadcasting outlets to distribute emergency messages quickly, was tested this past week. The EBS started in 1963, and was preceded by a similar service called, CONELRAD. Electronic eminent domain has been around a long time. Hold that thought.

Today, The New York Times reports Face Recognition Makes the Leap From Sci-Fi.

"SceneTap, a new app for smart phones, uses cameras with facial detection software to scout bar scenes. Without identifying specific bar patrons, it posts information like the average age of a crowd and the ratio of men to women, helping bar-hoppers decide where to go. More than 50 bars in Chicago participate... The spread of such technology — essentially, the democratization of surveillance — may herald the end of anonymity. 

Those endeavors pale next to the photo-tagging suggestion tool introduced by Facebook this year... “Millions of people are using it to add hundreds of millions of tags,” says Simon Axten, a Facebook spokesman. Other well-known programs like Picasa, the photo editing software from Google, and third-party apps like PhotoTagger, from face.com, work similarly. 

And this technology is spreading. Immersive Labs, a company in Manhattan, has developed software for digital billboards using cameras to gauge the age range, sex and attention level of a passer-by.

Using off-the-shelf facial recognition software, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University were recently able to identify about a third of college students who had volunteered to be photographed for a study — just by comparing photos of those anonymous students to images publicly available on Facebook."

Have you connected the dots yet? 

Here is another clue...  

CALEA, a law passed in 1994, "To amend title 18, United States Code, to make clear a telecommunications carrier's duty to cooperate in the interception of communications for Law Enforcement purposes, and for other purposes." Telecommunications yet another type of mass communications device which may now be commandeered by government.

Internet connected, facial recognition systems are rapidly becoming mainstream mass communications technology, just like radio, TV and telephones. It only makes sense that this too will be commandeered. The question is, will it be commandeered like EBS to broadcast emergency messages, or will it be commandeered like CALEA to be used for surveillance? Both, perhaps?

So far, the benefits of letting government commandeer mass communications (verses the abuse potential) make the gambit worthwhile. For this, we thank our legal system. It is time for them to walk the high wire again. Please, get us through this technical conundrum with grace and balance one more time.

The noose tightens... "You can run, but you can't hide." 

Should this all come to pass (it will), there may be some interesting social outcomes. Just as mass communications pulls society closer together, mass surveillance capabilities like CALEA, license plate readers, and the multitude of facial recognition surveillance systems may push people apart. Imagine a world where the density of: commercial video billboards and kiosks; business surveillance cameras; and government street/toll booth cameras, in urban areas, squeezes criminals into the suburbs and beyond.

How best to take advantage of the changes in our brave new world? 

I have a career tip for you.

~ Kevin

Yet More Invisibility Eyeglasses

This year, AVG will reveal a set of concept invisibility glasses at Pepcom in Barcelona before Mobile World Congress. 

What are invisibility glasses?

Developed by AVG Innovation Labs, the glasses help protect your visual identity in the digital age.

Through a mixture of technology and specialist materials, privacy wearables such as invisibility glasses can make it difficult for cameras or other facial recognition technologies to get a clear view of your identity.

...there are generally two different methods of combating unwanted facial recognition:

Infrared Light
The idea is to place infrared LEDs inserted around the eyes and the nose areas. Since the infrared lights are completely invisible to human eyes, they are only detectable by cameras which are sensitive to the wavelengths of these LEDs. They claim to break face detection when the lights are on.

In this example we show how infrared can be used to avoid Facebook’s facial recognition technology.

Retro-reflective Materials
These specialist materials help maintain your privacy at the moment that the image is actually taken.

PS - This is a proof-of-concept project. Not for sale. However, you can make your own.

Other glasses.

Note: Many cell phone cameras have infrared cutoff filters built into their lenses... and you can bet law enforcement facial recognition systems do too.

Face Masks v. Facial Recognition - China has it Covered

Hanwang, the facial-recognition company that has placed 2 million of its cameras at entrance gates across the world, started preparing for the coronavirus in early January.

Huang Lei, the company’s chief technical officer, said that even before the new virus was widely known about, he had begun to get requests...to update its software to recognize nurses wearing masks...

The company now says its masked facial recognition program has reached 95 percent accuracy in lab tests, and even claims that it is more accurate in real life, where its cameras take multiple photos of a person if the first attempt to identify them fails. more

The End of Anonymous On-Line Dating Has Arrived

Science fiction writers have long imagined a future in which facial recognition technology makes anonymity in public obsolete. A research study at Carnegie Mellon University suggests that this Minority Report future has already arrived, thanks to facial recognition products now commercially available, combined with the 750-million-person identity database called Facebook.

A CMU research team led by associate professor Alessandro Acquisti took candid photos of 93 random students on campus using a $35 webcam. Within seconds the researchers were able to determine the identities of a third of their photogenic guinea pigs, using off-the-shelf facial recognition software from PittPatt, a software company recently acquired by Google, and publicly available profile photos from Facebook. The researchers had an even higher rate of success using the same technology to identify more than 100,000 Pittsburgh singles with otherwise pseudonymous accounts on a dating site, adding yet more complexity to the world of online dating. (more)

You Are Never a Stranger in Our City - Facial Recognition Street Cams

Nvidia has partnered with AI developer AnyVision to create facial recognition technology for "smart cities" around the world. The two companies will work to install automatic facial recognition into CCTV (closed-circuit television) surveillance cameras.

AnyVision claims the technology enables cameras that can continuously scan for faces 24/7, automatically identifying and tracking individuals within a large crowd with 99% accuracy.

Algorithms working with human monitors can then compare the faces identified against a database of known terrorists or criminals.

The company also says it's committed to protecting the personal data that CCTV cameras collect.

So... is this technology terrifying, and possibly everything Orwell warned us about? Absolutely.

But it could also save thousands of lives. The technology could be useful not only for catching at-large criminals, but also for quickly identifying suspects, and tracking down individuals who have gone missing. more

You may recall, this has been tried before and its comeback was predicted here in 2008.

San Francisco Prohibits Deployment Of ‘Secret Surveillance’ Technologies

Although the facial recognition aspects of the ordinance have been the most publicized, it also targets a long list of other products and systems.

According to the ordinance, "Surveillance Technology" means “any software, electronic device, system utilizing an electronic device, or similar device used, designed, or primarily intended to collect, retain, process, or share audio, electronic, visual, location, thermal, biometric, olfactory or similar information specifically associated with, or capable of being associated with, any individual or group.” Broadly interpreted, that’s a lot of devices.

The ban only applies to city departments and agencies, not to private businesses or the general public. Therefore, San Franciscans can continue to use facial recognition technology every day when they unlock their smart phones.

And technologies such as facial recognition currently used at the San Francisco airport and ports are not impacted because they are under federal jurisdiction. more

Odd-Ball Spy News

Fifth of Government Workers Don't Care if Employer is Hacked

(Probably true for all businesses.)

Ivanti, the security vendor polled 800 public sector workers worldwide to compile its new Government Cybersecurity Status Report. It found a “not my job” attitude is exposing governments to excessive cyber-risk. Just a third (34%) of workers recognized that their actions impact their organization’s security posture. Nearly two-fifths (36%) said they haven’t reported phishing emails in the past, while a fifth (21%) said they don’t even care if the organization is hacked. more (This may help.)

Extra Credit: Seven years ago this month... Survey revealed 1 in 5 employees would sell their passwords.

Sweaters That Fool Facial Recognition

Protect your facial biometric data with knit wear? As absurd as that sounds, designer Rachele Didero, of the Italian startup Cap_able, has patented textiles that do just that. The patterns trick facial-recognition cameras into thinking it's not looking at a person. The pieces in the Manifesto Collection which include sweaters, pants, a dress, and a shirt, start at ~$300.

The idea has been around for a while.

Cheaper alternate designs; some with next day delivery!

Famed Manhattan Showroom Loses Peephole Camera Appeal
Manhattan appeals court on Thursday revived the brunt of a lawsuit against the renowned New York Design Center over a video camera... Cast your mind back to 2014... A camera hidden in the wall of a ladies' room at the New York Design Center secretly documented customers and employees for a month, a new lawsuit alleges. According to court documents obtained by the Post, the camera was found behind a broken wall tile on the sixth floor bathroom in April; the custodian who discovered it said it was trained on one of the stalls. more

Who Is Anthony Pellicano?
Infamous Hollywood private investigator Anthony Pellicano is the subject of a new documentary Sin Eater: The Crimes of Anthony Pellicano. The two-part special debuts on March 10 at 10 p.m. on FX and will stream on Hulu. Pellicano...gained a reputation as a fixer who could dig up dirt on his clients’ enemies to make them go away. But Pellicano’s ruthless methods were eventually his undoing, as he served extensive prison time for weapons charges as well as racketeering, wiretapping, and other crimes. more & as previously reported here.

Chinese Rocket that Delivered Military Spy Satellites Breaks Up Over Texas
The second stage of a Chinese rocket that delivered a trio of military surveillance satellites in June disintegrated over Texas on Wednesday, USNI News has learned. The four-ton component of a Chang Zheng 2D ‘Long March’ rocket punched through the atmosphere on Wednesday over Texas at 17,000 miles per hour and disintegrated, two defense officials confirmed to USNI News on Thursday... The debris field is over the least populated counties in the state, according to the Texas Demographic Center. more

The 10 Best Spy Movies That Aren't James Bond
When it comes to pure action-packed entertainment, few genres serve up as many thrills as spy movies. Spy films have been a mainstay of cinema all the way back to the medium's earliest days, like 1914's silent film The German Spy Peril. The genre kicked into high gear during the Cold War... more

SafeHouse Chicago, Spy-Themed Restaurant and Bar, Abruptly Closes
After six years of catering to secret agents and curious spies across Chicago, a spy-themed establishment has closed its doors. SafeHouse Chicago, a restaurant and bar featuring all things espionage-related, announced its abrupt closure online Monday, saying the business has "completed its last mission in Chicago." "We want to thank all of the spies who visited our Windy City headquarters and for your loyalty and support. It has been an absolute pleasure to welcome and serve spies from around the globe," SafeHouse said, in part, in a message posted on its website. more

Spybusters Tip #692: Head to Milwaukee. Best kept secret since 1966.

Stores Silently Deploying Facial Recognition to Spy on Shoppers

Major retailers in the US are already using facial recognition cameras to spy on shoppers, a campaigning group has warned...

Cameras are being used not just to catch persistent shoplifters, but also to monitor shoppers and analyze their emotions, so that stores can deliver personalized adverts on screens inside the store, George warned...

‘But it’s also being used for marketing purposes, they are gathering information on shoppers and seeing what they are buying and not buying - and using AI tools to analyse the emotions of shoppers and see what sort of ads to direct at them.’ more

Proof the Surveillance Society is Making us Crazy - CV Dazzle

This is how bad things are getting...

"The NSA made me slather my face in make-up... I had slathered the paint on my face in order to hide from computers. The patterns in which I applied the paint were important: To the pixel-calculating machinations of facial recognition algorithms, they transformed my face into a mess of unremarkable pixels. In the computer’s vision, my face caused a momentary burst of confusion. That’s why the patterns are called computer vision dazzle (or CV dazzle). When it works, CV dazzle keeps facial-recognition algorithms from seeing a face...

...more unexpected was what CV dazzle taught me about the physical world. It reminded me of another tech experiment I’d undertaken: 

My phone’s Reminders app can tie a message to a specific place, it triggers an alert tone every time a user comes within 500 feet. I’d tried tying these reminders to a different kind of location—the 176 embassies and diplomatic missions in Washington, D.C. Whenever I got within a couple hundred feet of one, my phone sent me a little ping: “Iceland.” “Thailand.” “Equitorial New Guinea.”...

...here is the essence of CV dazzle’s strangeness: The very thing that makes you invisible to computers makes you glaringly obvious to other humans."  (more) (official site cvdazzle.com)


Blank Reg would have loved this.

2022 Olympics App Could Be Used for Spying

People traveling to China for the 2022 Winter Olympics—including athletes, government dignitaries, and corporate executives—are all at risk of personal data exposure and being surveilled by the Chinese regime, a data security expert warned. more

Beijing requires all athletes to install a smartphone app called MY2022 to report health and travel data while in China. The University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab reported the app as having significant encryption and security flaws and a censorship list (albeit currently inactive) of 2,442 “illegal words.”  The security flaws are by design, allowing authorities to access phones. Such subtle approaches are common among intelligence services.

All laptop communications will be monitored and provided, in near real time, to China’s security services. Chinese law requires the use of government-approved VPN (Virtual Private Network) providers for internet access. Use of non-approved VPN providers could result in criminal charges against the individual.

Cellphone tracking, onsite video surveillance systems, and facial recognition technology will be used to track the movement of each athlete. China has the most sophisticated facial recognition and associated artificial intelligence in the world, thanks in part to collaborations with U.S. universities and businesses.

Personal behavior will also be watched and catalogued by the Chinese government. more

Facial Recognition Technology – Not Ready for PRIME Time

Amazon.com’s facial recognition tools incorrectly identified Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and 27 other members of Congress as people arrested for a crime during a test commissioned by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, the watchdog said Thursday...Amazon’s so-called Rekognition technology — already in use at law-enforcement agencies in Oregon and Orlando — is hampered by inaccuracies... more

Security Scrapbook Flashback to 2008.

PimEyes: Cool New PI Tool or Privacy Alert - You Decide

You probably haven't seen PimEyes, a mysterious facial-recognition search engine, but it may have spotted you... Anyone can use this powerful facial-recognition tool — and that's a problem.

If you upload a picture of your face to PimEyes' website, it will immediately show you any pictures of yourself that the company has found around the internet. You might recognize all of them, or be surprised (or, perhaps, even horrified) by some; these images may include anything from wedding or vacation snapshots to pornographic images.

PimEyes is open to anyone with internet access. more

Why Casinos Are Spying on Their Ultra-Rich Clients

An integral part of how the casino lavishes services on its members is by monitoring their movements on the premises — with the help of facial-recognition cameras in recent years.

Of the 400 cameras in the building, 10 are linked to a face-scanning system. Whenever a member enters the building or one of its private gambling rooms, staff get pinged on their phones.

Clients, for their part, accept this Orwellian scrutiny as necessary to enhance their experience. “It’s the expectation,” says Ryan Best, the surveillance and security manager at the casino who set up its facial-recognition system up in 2018. 

Several luxury hotels in nearby Mayfair have recently introduced similar systems to alert everyone to arriving VIPs, he says. more

Facial Recognition Glasses Used by Police to Identify Suspects

Chinese police are using dark sunglasses equipped with facial recognition technology to spot criminal suspects.

The glasses, which are being worn by police at a busy train station ahead of the Chinese New Year travel rush, are linked to a central database which contains details of criminal records.

Wearing the technology, police can almost instantly view an individual's personal details, including name, ethnicity, gender and address.

The scene would not look out of place in an episode of science fiction television drama Black Mirror, which often depicts dark scenarios of humans being overcome by technology.

China is deploying new technologies to monitor people in ways that would unnerve many in the West. more

SpyCam Story #505 - The Church Robber

NC - The Cleveland County Sheriff's Office is searching for a man who was caught on camera stealing electronics from a church. Anyone with information on the man should call Cleveland County Crime Stoppers at 704-481-TIPS. (more photos)

Side lesson: If you buy a CCTV system to document crime, be sure to consider picture quality. Just keep repeating, "Facial recognition. Facial recognition. Fac..."

Odd-Ball - Anti Facial Recognition to Debut at Sundance Film Festival

HyperFace is a new kind of camouflage that aims to reduce the confidence score of facial detection and recognition by providing false faces that distract computer vision algorithms...

HyperFace will launch as a textile print at Sundance Film Festival on January 16, 2017.

Prototype

HyperFace works by providing maximally activated false faces based on ideal algorithmic representations of a human face. These maximal activations are targeted for specific algorithms. The prototype is specific to OpenCV’s default frontalface profile. Other patterns target convolutional nueral networks and HoG/SVM detectors... HyperFace reduces the confidence score of the true face (figure) by redirecting more attention to the nearby false face regions (ground).

Conceptually, HyperFace recognizes that completely concealing a face to facial detection algorithms remains a technical and aesthetic challenge. Instead of seeking computer vision anonymity through minimizing the confidence score of a true face, HyperFace offers a higher confidence score for a nearby false face by exploiting a common algorithmic preference for the highest confidence facial region.

In other words, if a computer vision algorithm is expecting a face, give it what it wants. more

Surveillance Startup Used Own Cameras to Harass Coworkers

A surveillance startup in Silicon Valley is being accused of sexism and discrimination after a sales director used the company’s facial recognition system to harass female workers. 

Verkada, which was valued in January at $1.6 billion, equips its office with its own security cameras. 

Employees at Verkada accessed the company's facial recognition system to take photos of women colleagues and make sexually explicit jokes.

Last year, the sales director accessed these cameras to take photos of female workers, then posted them in a Slack channel called #RawVerkadawgz alongside sexually explicit jokes. The incident was first reported by IPVM and independently verified by Vice. more

Can you zoom in on that license plate?

The recent video enhancement post sparked additional interest in the subject. Upon doing some more research, it became clear that enhancing is only part of the picture. (Geez, I am starting to sound like Mr. Peabody.) 

Even more important is investing in technology which works in the first place. For example, the video surveillance system required in a small store is not what works best for surveying a parking lot.

The following explanation at Jim Hoerricks' blog is really insightful and educational...

Can you zoom in on that license plate? Can you zoom in on his face? Why can't you make this image clearer. These are questions that many forensic video analysts deal with on a daily basis. To illustrate the answer to these questions, let's consider this image:

This Monitoring image comes from an Avigilon system's 16 megapixel camera.

With the above image in mind, let's consider the outstanding advice from the UK's Home Office Scientific Development Branch:

To judge the quality of images that will be necessary, you will need to take into account the purpose for which CCTV is used and the level of quality that will be necessary to achieve the purpose. The Home Office Scientific Development Branch (HOSDB) recommends identifying the needs of a CCTV system by using four categories:

1. Monitoring: to watch the flow of traffic or the movement of people where you do not need to pick out individual figures.
2. Detecting: to detect the presence of a person in the image, without needing to see their face.
3. Recognising: to recognise somebody you know, or determine that somebody is not known to you.
4. Identifying: to record high quality facial images which can be used in court to prove someone’s identity beyond reasonable doubt.

Take a look at the picture above. Can you make out faces or license plates? No. So, if your purpose is to identify these items, that picture view just won't do. 

With Photoshop, we can zoom in. Let's see what happens.

This Detecting view comes from zooming in a 16 megapixel image.

We can now see the people and vehicles more clearly. We can gain a general awareness of types of vehicles. We are closer to identifying them, but we don't have anything yet that will help us to prove identity beyond a reasonable doubt. We can zoom in further to see if we can Recognise anyone.

This Recognising view comes from zooming in a 16 megapixel image.

 At this level of magnification, someone who knows this person or car should be able to say, "that's him" or "that's not the man/car you are looking for." At this point, we can begin to accurately describe the individual in the scene. Let's zoom in some more to see if we can positively identify this man and the car.

This Identifying view comes from zooming in a 16 megapixel image.

With a 16 megapixel image, we can even zoom in closer than this image. But notice what's happened along the way. We've sacrificed field of view for detail. No longer are we looking at the whole parking lot (monitoring). We can't see the other people who are walking around (detecting). In order to identify this individual, we've had to zoom in so far that we've excluded much of this scene from our view. A CCTV Installer might position a camera/lens combination at a choke point specifically to get facial recognition whilst installing other cameras around the area to monitor and detect movement of unauthorised persons.

But what about real life. The good folks at Avigilon have a small piece of a very large market. What if that same monitoring image was only 4CIF or 2CIF. Could we still zoom in and identify the individuals in the scene? You be the judge.

The image from Avigilon contains 15,824,256 pixels and can come in a lossless RAW format.

This image contains only 426,400 pixels and is compressed. 

With an almost 97% reduction in the amount of available pixels and the additional compression, the results speak for themselves.

The result of zooming in on a low pixel count image.

So, the answer to "can you zoom in on that license plate" is ... it depends on the quality of the image and the number of available pixels. ~Jim Hoerricks - author of Forensic Photoshop, a comprehensive imaging workflow for forensic professionals

SpyCam Story #476 - Follow Me Roaming

Singapore - A brain might well be added to those all-seeing eyes along streets, train stations and shopping centres.

The Home Affairs Ministry wants those surveillance cameras put to more pro-active use, with new technology that can detect a face in a crowd, for example.

Last month, it made public two 'request for information' (RFI) documents asking about two similar types of technology: one that can recognise suspects by their facial features and another that can pick out objects of interest - from video footage. (more) (spoof video)

FutureWatch - Although facial recognition and tracking didn't catch on the first go-around (the Tampa, Florida experiment), it is ripe for a come-back. 5 years from now, this will be commonplace – along with automatic license plate readers and motion-intention evaluators.

Flashback - August 23, 2003
It is with sadness we note the demise of our favorite city motto... Tampa - "You're only a stranger here once."

August 2003 - Tampa police have scrapped their controversial security camera system that scanned city streets for criminals, citing its failure over two years to recognize anyone wanted by authorities.

History...
July 2001 - The Tampa City Council took a fully-informed look at Ybor City's controversial high-tech face-scanning software. When the dust settled, the council split down the middle with a 3-3 vote on whether or not to do away with the face-scanning software.
http://www.spybusters.com/SS018.html (search word: Ybor)

The New York City Police Department now has "The most advanced and technological counter-terrorism bureau that anyone has ever seen."

NY - A new crime-tracking system designed jointly by the New York Police Department and Microsoft Corp. will pool existing data from cameras, 911 calls and other technologies to provide crime fighters with a comprehensive view of threats and criminal activity, as well as provide the city with a new revenue source.

The Domain Awareness System will be able to map suspects' movements and provide NYPD investigators and analysts with real-time crime alerts.

...the system will allow NYPD personnel to track a suspect's car, and find out where it's been located in the past days or weeks synthesizing archived video footage and license plate reader data. Other potential uses include mapping criminal history geospatially and chronologically to reveal patterns, and the ability to instantly see suspect arrest records, 911 calls associated with the suspect and related crimes occurring in the area. (more) (60 Minutes video) 
This afternoon the NYPD debuted their "all-seeing" Domain Awareness System, which syncs the city's 3,000 closed circuit camera feeds in Lower Manhattan, Midtown, and near bridges and tunnels with arrest records, 911 calls, license plate recognition technology, and even radiation detectors. Mayor Bloomberg dismissed concerns that this represented the most glaring example of Big Brother-style policing. "What you're seeing is what the private sector has used for a long time," Bloomberg said. "If you walk around with a cell phone, the cell phone company knows where you are…We're not your mom and pop's police department anymore."

NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly stated that the system, which is currently operational out of the department's Lower Manhattan Security Commission HQ, was developed with a "state of the art privacy policy" and "working with the privacy community," but did not offer specifics. DAS does not have facial recognition technology at this time, but "it's something that's very close to being developed," the mayor said.  

The system was developed with Microsoft and paid for by the city for $30 to $40 million, and has already been in use for six months. The feeds compiled by the system are kept for thirty days, then erased.

The City will receive 30% on the profits Microsoft will make selling it to other cities, although Mayor Bloomberg declined to say if that money would go back into the NYPD. "Maybe we'll even make a few bucks." (more)