August 20, 2003
Face-it gone after dismal failure in Ybor
The fliers screamed “Stop Facial Profiling!” Hundreds of people donned cheap plastic Lone Ranger style masks and took to the streets in protest. Local TV and newspapers were all over the place. National press took notice, but the City Council rolled over and allowed Visionics Corp. (now known as Identix) to sniff and paw all over us.
A little history: Visionics makes software called Face-It which purports to be able to recognize faces in a crowd and identify those that are on a list. Hopefully, the list will contain wanted criminals, but it could just as easily be set up to find any individual or member of a group.
Face-It was not doing too well in the marketplace. This was probably because it doesn’t work. Visionics offered to buy the extra cameras and install Face-It in Ybor for free so that the company could claim that the system was up and running in a major metro area. In other words, the citizens of Tampa were to be used as guinea pigs as Visionics tried to make the software work and sell it all at the same time. This all sounded just fine to the Tampa City Council.
So a few of us got together and organized a protest. In Ybor. Under the cameras that were already there.
The cheap plastic masks were my idea. We gave away well over 1,000 masks that night and were joined by hundreds of like minded folks wearing homemade masks, masks of politician’s faces, Hitler masks, and more. The energy was fantastic, and it was the most enjoyable protest I’ve ever attended here in Tampa.
We packed a city council meeting with Facial Profiling opponents. We pointed out that the software did not work. We told the Council that such a system was ripe for abuse. We said that this was going too far, that cameras manned by an officer were one thing (and possibly also intrusive, but we let that go) but that adding computers to the mix and having a computer decide that a face may be similar to the face of a wanted criminal and to stop and hassle people based on that flimsy evidence was just too much.
Look: an officer manning a camera is going to be looking for active crime: pickpockets, fights, and other inappropriate behavior. Having police respond to these kinds of problems is exactly what I want, especially in the crowded carnival-like streets of Ybor. On the other hand, having a computer “recognize” someone’s face as that of a person who is on some list, and having police detain and question that person based solely on that recognition is flat wrong. Remember: if the police are busy chasing down people who aren’t actively engaging in any criminal act, then the police aren’t gonna have time to intervene or catch the purse-snatcher who is working the crowd.
The only argument anyone on the other side could muster was the old “you must have something to hide if you are against these cameras” tactic. We asked the other side if they value their privacy. We asked them if they close the door when they use the bathroom, and if so, what were they trying to hide?
The Council ignored the pleas of the citizens and sided with the corporate thugs of Visionics.
From the SP Times:
Two years after Tampa became the nation's first city to use facial-recognition software to search for wanted criminals, officials are dropping the program.
It led to zero arrests.
......
The city first toyed with the technology during the 2001 Super Bowl, when surveillance cameras monitored people entering Raymond James Stadium.
That led critics to dub the game, "Snooper Bowl." And although cameras picked up 19 "hits," or possible matches with wanted criminals, none were arrested.
That June, New Jersey-based Visionics Corp. offered the city a free trial use of a similar program called Face-It, and the software was installed on 36 cameras in the Ybor City entertainment district.
......
Even as the software proved unsuccessful in nabbing wanted offenders, it did a superb job of attracting outrage from critics.
Republican Dick Armey, the House Majority Leader at the time, called for congressional hearings on the controversial surveillance technology.
Leaders from the American Civil Liberties Union denounced the practice, likening it to something out of George Orwell's novel 1984.
Scores of protesters donned bandanas, masks and Groucho Marx glasses and took to the streets of Ybor City on a busy Saturday night to show their contempt for the face-scanning system.
......
(Tampa Police spokesperson) Durkin emphasized Tuesday that the trial run with Face-It didn't cost the city any money. But even so, he said, its use likely benefited the city.
"Something that's intangible is how many wanted persons avoided (Ybor City) because the cameras were there," he said. "That's something we may never calculate."
That quote just floors me. This is one of Visionics most oft repeated arguments, that arrests didn’t happen because criminals were scared to enter an area with cameras. Of course there is no way to prove or disprove This theory, but the company flogs it mercilessly.
From the Tribune:
The Tampa Police Department has eliminated the facial-recognition software hooked up to cameras scanning crowds in Ybor City - after two years, zero arrests and zero positive identifications.
The software, provided to the city free by its manufacturer, was intended to recognize the facial characteristics of felons and runaway children through a database of more than 24,000 mug shots. It was shut down Tuesday, having failed in its objective.
``It's just proven not to have any benefit to us,'' said Capt. Bob Guidara, a department spokesman.
At least Guidara’s not buying into the “criminals were scared away” argument...
The 36 surveillance cameras, which were installed a few years before the facial- recognition software, will remain. Police spokesman Joe Durkin said the software might not work but the cameras have led to several arrests.
``Officers have been able to make arrests involving illegal drug dealing, fights and things of that nature,'' Durkin said. ``One officer monitoring the cameras has been able to be the eyes of many in foiling this type of activity.''
So Durkin, the guy who said that wanted felons were scared away by the Face-It cameras, seems to be saying here that the cameras are better suited for traditional methods of use. Hmmm...
A few questions linger in my mind: Were any images taken from the cameras saved? Are these images the property of Identix? Wait, I know of at least one image that was saved (from the same SP Times article as above):
Rob Milliron, then 32, wound up on a surveillance camera one day while at lunch in Ybor City. Tampa police used his photo to demonstrate the system to local news media.
A woman in Tulsa, Okla., saw his picture and fingered him as her ex-husband who was wanted on felony child neglect charges. Three police officers showed up at Milliron's construction job site, asking if he was a wanted man.
Turns out he had never married, never had kids, never even been to Oklahoma.
"They made me feel like a criminal," Milliron said at the time.
Posted by Norwood at August 20, 2003 07:44 AMVery interesting!Thanks!
Posted by: reality porn sites at July 28, 2004 06:43 AM