You Partied Hard At Boston Calling And There's Facial Recognition Data To Prove It.

[friendly_iconoclast]

http://digboston.com/boston-news-opinions/2014/08/boston-trolling-part-i-you-partied-hard-at-boston-calling-and-theres-facial-recognition-data-to-prove-it/

BOSTON TROLLING (PART I): YOU PARTIED HARD AT BOSTON CALLING AND THERE’S FACIAL RECOGNITION DATA TO PROVE IT
Posted on August 7, 2014 by DIG STAFF

BY CHRIS FARAONE, KENNETH LIPP & JONATHAN RILEY

Nobody at either day of last year’s debut Boston Calling partied with much expectation of privacy. With an army of media photographers, selfie takers, and videographers recording every angle of the massive concert on Government Center, it was inherently clear that music fans were in the middle of a massive photo opp.

What Boston Calling attendees (and promoters, for that matter) didn’t know, however, was that they were all unwitting test subjects for a sophisticated new event monitoring platform. Namely, the city’s software and equipment gave authorities a live and detailed birdseye view of concertgoers, pedestrians, and vehicles in the vicinity of City Hall on May 25 and 26 of 2013 (as well as during the two days of a subsequent Boston Calling in September). We’re not talking about old school black and white surveillance cameras. More like technology that analyzes every passerby for height, clothing, and skin color.

Along with a dashboard that displays real-time alert data from social media and other nodes of input, city agencies captured thousands of faces using more than 10 cameras capable of intelligent video analysis. Their objective? To detect traffic congestion and suspicious objects, screen people for possible forensic identification purposes, and conduct real-time video analytics. Nevertheless, more than 50 hours of recordings — samples of which are highlighted herein as examples — remain intact today.

Dig reporters picked up on a scent leading to correspondence detailing the Boston Calling campaign while searching the deep web for keywords related to surveillance in Boston. Shockingly, these sensitive documents have been left exposed online for more than a year. Among them are memos written by employees of IBM, the outside contractor involved, presenting plans to use “Face Capture” on “every person” at the 2013 concert. Another defines a party of interest “as anyone who walks through the door”....

[tblue37]

1. KnR. This is terrible, and people need to be aware of it. nt

[friendly_iconoclast]

2. "Beantown's Big Brother: How Boston Police Used Facial Recognition Technology to Spy...

...On Thousand Of Music Festival Attendees":

http://noisey.vice.com/blog/beantowns-big-brother

...ne of the reasons for a less physically imposing police presence may have been that the city was in the process of testing a pilot program for a massive facial recognition surveillance system on everyone at the concerts in both May and September. Using software provided by IBM that utilized existing security cameras throughout the area, the city tracked the thousands of attendees at the concert and in the vicinity, and filtered their appearance into data points which could then be cross-checked against certain identifying characteristics. And then... Well, what happens next is what makes this sort of thing so potentially troubling.

Slides provided to me by the Dig's Chris Faraone show how the system was meant to work, with the software capable of distinguishing people by such characteristics as baldness, eyeglasses, skin tone, torso texture, and beards which, considering this was an indie rock concert may have overloaded their servers. The data would then be transmitted to a hub, where city representatives, Boston Police, and IBM support staff could watch in real time, all while simultaneously monitoring social media key words related to the event. The purpose, ostensibly, was being able to pick up on suspicious activity as it was happening, for example “alerting when a person loiters near a doorway as they would if trying to gain entrance,” the slides explain, or alerting of “attempts to climb perimeter barricade,” or an “abandoned object near barricade.”

These seem like worthwhile things to be on the lookout for, but among the capabilities was one that seems particularly egregious and questionably necessary: “Face Capture of every person who approaches the door.”



The Boston Police Department denied having had anything to do with the initiative, but images provided to me by Kenneth Lipp, the journalist who uncovered the files, show Boston police within the monitoring station being instructed on its use by IBM staff.

[tblue37]

4. It's like NSA surveillance: they are not just targeting those

whom they have reason to be suspicious of. They are collecting surveillance data on everyone: without justification, without warrants, without oversight. Imagine how useful such capabilities--and such data--would be to the secret police in a totalitarian state. Considering the rate at which the US is moving toward fascism, I am appalled at the sheer Big Brotherism of this experiment and of their apparent long-term plans.

[RKP5637]

5. Exactly, every individual is being parsed and stored in an electronic container of all

Last edited Sat Aug 23, 2014, 08:21 AM - Edit history (1)

identifiable information and characteristics. Next, will be predictive crime detection ... picked up because one fits the electronic profile of one with the potential to commit a potential crime, although none has been. This is highly dangerous stuff and the potential for fuck ups and abuse is horrendous. And those thinking it's great, imagine if the tables were turned, as you say, by a despotic leader in a more fascist society.

[OnyxCollie]

3. K&R. nt

[Bill USA]

6. Real-time Google Glass app can ID people using facial recognition

http://www.dvice.com/2014-2-6/real-time-google-glass-app-can-id-people-using-facial-recognition

?itok=ENx3Xz89

We've said it many times and we'll say it again: Google Glass is both wonderfully great and terrifying at the same time. When used for good, Glass has the potential to provide all kinds of occupations with innovative features that take advantage of its camera. But at the same time, some jerk can use Glass and become a real creep.

While anyone can clearly see you're wearing Glass, it's not always apparent to outsiders if you're recording video or taking pictures of them. (We tech geeks will know because we'll see the screen is turned on but most people don't know that.) Stealthy photography/video recording is one of the benefits Glass, but one feature that Google has publicly stated it won't allow in official Glass apps (Glassware) is facial recognition — even if it could be used by doctors and hospital staff — because it's too dangerous.

For obvious privacy reasons, allowing facial recognition on Glass would only make the wearable creepy to the public. But whether Google likes it or not, there will always be hackers entrepeneurs that mean business. Case in point: FacialNetwork's Google Glass app "NameTag", which can scan faces and try to find a match in a compiled database of over 2.5 million faces.

With the NameTag app loaded up, Glass's camera can do two things: 1) scan a photo or 2) scan a person's face. If a match is found, NameTag will display info such as a person's social network profiles, interests, relationship status, occupation, etc.
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