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Earlier this year, I reported that Amazon’s spying Ring doorbells are being installed everywhere and how everyone’s privacy is at stake.

But a recent CNN article revealed that Amazon wants to turn homeowners’ doorbells into facial recognition devices using their Rekogntion software.

An Amazon patent application which was made public on the United States Patent and Trademark Office website, describes how a network of cameras could work together with facial recognition technology to identify people.

Amazon also wants homeowners to create their “own” private database of suspicious people, effectively creating private watchlist networks.

The application describes creating a database of suspicious persons. Unwanted visitors would be added to the list when a homeowner tags them as not authorized. Other people could be added to the database because they are a convicted felon or registered sex offender, according to the application. Residents may also alert neighbors of a suspicious person’s presence.

Because who doesn’t want to create a private watchlist of your friends and neighbors?

Amazon is not the only company that wants you to spy on your neighbors.

Nest Hello is Google’s facial recognition doorbell that can identify anyone and store their images to the cloud. Homeowners are required to sign up for a Nest Aware subscription that ranges anywhere from $5.00 to $30.00 a month.

Arlo Audio Doorbell, August’s Doorbell Cam Pro, Skybell and Netatmo are also profiting from turning neighbors into government spies.

Earlier this year an article in the Orlando Sentinel revealed that police have created a private neighborhood network of 10,000 spying doorbells.

Orlando Police are hoping further access to the network of about 10,000 Ring users in Orlando will help the department solve burglaries, mail thefts and other crimes.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

National facial recognition database to use loyalty rewards to identify American shoppers

November 14, 2018

National facial recognition database to use loyalty rewards to identify American shoppers

image credit: Zenus Biometrics

For years, I have been warning people about facial recognition in retail stores, but this story might convince you to avoid retail stores altogether.

A recent article in Biometric Update. com (BU) reveals that retail stores have a master plan to convince Americans to accept facial biometrics.

BU interviewed four facial biometric company CEO’s and what they revealed is frightening.

The article starts off innocuously enough by telling us that U.S. retail biometrics is used primarily in loss-prevention but things quickly take a turn for the worse.

BU’s interview with FaceFirst CEO Peter Tripp is especially disconcerting, as he reveals how retailers plan to use a “facial recognition opt-in environment.”

“There is another step though that exists which has more to do with consumer loyalty, and consumer experience, that is not quite as expensive an endeavor, and I think there are lots of folks looking at ways of doing that in a friendly opt-in environment, where privacy is not the cornerstone issue, Tripp said.”

If any of this sounds familiar its because they are doing the exact same thing with digital drivers licenses.

Biometric companies are trying to convince Americans to accept digital drivers license by tying them to loyalty rewards programs. Last year the Lincoln Motor Company installed “complimentary” TSA PreCheck biometric scanners in all their new vehicles so customers can get through airport and sport stadium check-in lines quicker.

Corporate-run national biometric database

According to a recent ZDNet article a new partnership between SureID a biometric fingerprinting company and Robbie.AI a facial recognition company “could create a national biometric database.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Dystopian Future of Facebook

November 8, 2018

The Dystopian Future of Facebook

Photo Source thierry ehrmann | CC BY 2.0

This year Facebook filed two very interesting patents in the US. One was a patent for emotion recognition technology; which recognises human emotions through facial expressions and so can therefore assess what mood we are in at any given time-happy or anxious for example. This can be done either by a webcam or through a phone cam. The technology is relatively straight forward. Artificially intelligent driven algorithms analyses and then deciphers facial expressions, it then matches the duration and intensity of the expression with a corresponding emotion. Take contempt for example. Measured by a range of values from 0 to 100, an expression of contempt could be measured by a smirking smile, a furrowed brow and a wrinkled nose. An emotion can then be extrapolated from the data linking it to your dominant personality traits: openness, introverted, neurotic, say.

The accuracy of the match may not be perfect, its always good to be sceptical about what is being claimed, but as AI (Artificial Intelligence) learns exponentially and the technology gets much better; it is already much, much quicker than human intelligence.

Recently at Columbia University a competition was set up between human lawyers and their AI counterparts. Both read a series of non-disclosure agreements with loopholes in them. AI found 95% compared to 88% by humans. The human lawyers took 90 minutes to read them; AI took 22 seconds. More incredibly still, last year Google’s AlphaZero beat Stockfish 8 in chess. Stockfish 8 is an open-sourced chess engine with access to centuries of human chess experience. Yet AlphaZero taught itself using machine learning principles, free of human instruction, beating Stockfish 8 28 times and drawing 72 out of 100. It took AlphaZero four hours to independently teach itself chess. Four hours from blank slate to genius.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How the government uses its giant facial recognition database

October 30, 2018

How the government uses its giant facial recognition database

In July 1996, flight TWA 800 exploded in mid-air, 12 minutes after taking off from JFK International Airport in New York. All 230 passengers on board were killed.

It would be four years before an investigation concluded the likely cause of the explosion was a short circuit in the plane’s fuel tank.

But at the time, President Clinton felt the overwhelming need to do something.

People suspected terrorism. So Clinton issued new airport security rules.

From then on, identification was required to board an airplane.

Before that, you just needed a ticket.

After the attacks of September 11, 2001, airport security escalated.

The TSA (Transportation Security Administration) and DHS (Department of Homeland Security) were born.

Screening procedures intensified. Agents could now feel you up and down. Then came naked body scanners and the Real ID requirement.

Real ID standards were part of the post-9/11 security hysteria. But they are just now coming into full effect.

The federal guidelines require states to issue IDs that meet certain federal standards, or else the ID cannot be used for flying.

One of these standards is that the photo on the ID has to work with facial recognition systems.

CBP (Customs and Border Protection) has now completed a pilot program for using biometric data for boarding flights exiting the country. Biometric data includes unique identity markers like fingerprints, iris scans, and facial recognition.

The DHS audited the pilot program, and found that it was a success. They caught 1,300 people who had overstayed their visas.

Wait, what? I thought this was supposed to be about national security?

But that’s not what you get from the propaganda piece on the CBP’s website.

One of their “success stories” involved a Polish couple leaving the country. They were using fake documents. But the biometric data revealed they were ordered deported and hadn’t left.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Government Wants Airlines to Delay Your Flight So They Can Scan Your Face

September 26, 2018

THE GOVERNMENT WANTS AIRLINES TO DELAY YOUR FLIGHT SO THEY CAN SCAN YOUR FACE

OMNIPRESENT FACIAL RECOGNITION has become a golden goose for law enforcement agencies around the world. In the United States, few are as eager as the Department of Homeland Security. American airports are currently being used as laboratories for a new tool that would automatically scan your face — and confirm your identity with U.S. Customs and Border Protection — as you prepare to board a flight, despite the near-unanimous objections from privacy advocates and civil libertarians, who call such scans invasive and pointless.

According to a new report on the Biometric Entry-Exit Program by DHS itself, we can add another objection: Your flight could be late.

Although the new report, published by Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General, is overwhelmingly supportive in its evaluation of airport-based biometric surveillance — the practice of a computer detecting your face and pairing it with everything else in the system — the agency notes some hurdles from a recent test code-named “Sprint 8.” Among them, the report notes with palpable frustration, was that airlines insist on letting their passengers depart on time, rather than subjecting them to a Homeland Security surveillance prototype plagued by technical issues and slowdowns:

Demanding flight departure schedules posed other operational problems that significantly hampered biometric matching of passengers during the pilot in 2017. Typically, when incoming flights arrived behind schedule, the time allotted for boarding departing flights was reduced. In these cases, CBP allowed airlines to bypass biometric processing in order to save time. As such, passengers could proceed with presenting their boarding passes to gate agents without being photographed and biometrically matched by CBP first. We observed this scenario at the Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport when an airline suspended the biometric matching process early to avoid a flight delay. This resulted in approximately 120 passengers boarding the flight without biometric confirmation.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Facial Recognition Toll Booths Identify Drivers and Passengers, Notify Police Within Seconds

July 27, 2018

Facial Recognition Toll Booths Identify Drivers and Passengers, Notify Police Within Seconds

The state of New York is using facial recognition cameras to identify drivers and passengers at toll booths.

A recent article in the New York Post revealed that toll booths use facial recognition to identify everyone.

“We are now moving to facial-recognition technology, which takes it to a whole new level, where it can see the face of the person in the car and run that technology against databases,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. (Click here & here to learn more.)

Police are also testing facial recognition cameras that can identify people based on the shape of their ears!

“Because many times a person will turn their head when they see a security camera, so they are now experimenting with technology that just identifies a person by their ear, believe it or not,” Cuomo said.

NYC’s spying bridges

Last year Vocativ revealed that NYC is using toll booth gantries to create a ring of spying cameras.

The Authority is interested in implementing a Facial Detection System, in a free-flow highway environment, where vehicle movement is unimpeded at highway speeds as well as bumper-to-bumper traffic, and license plate images are taken and matched to occupants of the vehicles (via license plate number) with Facial Detection and Recognition methods from a gantry-based or road-side monitoring location.

Police facial recognition to identify drivers within seconds

According to the NY Post, toll booth gantries can identify vehicles within seconds.

License plates scanned at the toll plazas, at least, are already being checked for warrants, suspected felons, parole violators, terrorist suspects and the intel is passed within five seconds on to cop cars stationed at the crossings.

How long before NYC uses facial recognition cameras to identify drivers and passengers within seconds?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Big Brother Surveillance Begins: Cuomo Unveils Facial Scanning At New York Toll Plazas

July 21, 2018

Big Brother Surveillance Begins: Cuomo Unveils Facial Scanning At New York Toll Plazas

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo revealed on Friday that facial recognition cameras installed at bridge and tunnel toll plazas across New York City are scanning every driver’s face and feeding them into a massive database designed to catch suspected criminals.

“When it reads that license plate, it reads it for scofflaws . . . [but] the toll is almost the least significant contribution that this electronic equipment can actually perform,” Cuomo said at a press conference outside the Queens Midtown Tunnel.

“We are now moving to facial-recognition technology, which takes it to a whole new level, where it can see the face of the person in the car and run that technology against databases… Because many times a person will turn their head when they see a security camera, so they are now experimenting with technology that just identifies a person by their ear, believe it or not,” he continued.

The technology is currently in use at the RFK/Triborough Bridge, and was switched on at the Queens Midtown and Brooklyn-Battery tunnels on Friday, according to the Governor’s office.

It will also eventually come to at least two of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s six other spans — the Throgs Neck and Whitestone bridges — and down the road will be added at all area airports, Cuomo’s office confirmed.

A request for proposals from contractors previously published by the online news outlet Vocativ says the tech is slated for all seven of the city’s toll bridges in addition to the two tunnels. –NY Post

The Governor’s office wouldn’t say when forthcoming cameras will be activated, which databases will be used to compare photos, or who will have access to the data, however Cuomo said that license plates which are already scanned at the plazas are currently checked “for warrants, suspected felons, parole violators, terrorist suspects.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

China: Testing Ground for U.S. Surveillance

February 20, 2018

China: Testing Ground for U.S. Surveillance

There is little doubt for most of us that the recent shootings in Florida were not merely a “spontaneous, random event,” precipitated by one individual. At the very least, if Cruz (the alleged shooter) was a “lone wolf,” then the Deep State and those who back it in the Congress are going to exploit it. They will not allow such a crisis to go to waste. Now a new “crusade” is forming by the Statists for gun control.

They know: once they control the guns, the gulags can follow.

Indeed, the Democrats have just announced they will submit “reforms” totaling more than 100 pages on gun control. It has been announced that all 49 Democrats of the Senate will be in lock step with this one. Is McCain counted among that number? Taking the guns away from the citizens is just one part of the equation. The other part (equally as sinister) is the ubiquitous state of surveillance that is being emplaced throughout the United States.

China is the “testing ground.” If it works in China, the Statists are convinced it will also work in the United States in the future…when they intend to unveil it. We have already seen drastic measures being taken with bills that include biometric passports with more difficulty for American citizens to leave than for anyone to enter. That is because citizens are subjects, and we pay the monstrous taxes…the highest of any country in the world…to keep us impoverished, keep us on the treadmill, keep the system going…the infallible system, that of the existing social, political, and economic order.

Popular Science writer Rob Verger just released an article on 2/8/18 entitled Chinese Cops are Using Facial-Recognition Sunglasses: Here’s How that Tech Works, that bears reading.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Trump Administration to Test Biometric Program to Scan Faces of Drivers and Passengers in Vehicles

February 6, 2018

Trump Administration to Test Biometric Program to Scan Faces of Drivers and Passengers in Vehicles

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection is preparing to launch a pilot program to scan the faces of drivers and passengers at Anzalduas Port near McAllen, Texas.

On Thursday the U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced plans for a new pilot program that will test out biometric facial recognition technology as part of an effort to identify fugitives or terror suspects. The Austin-American Statesman reported on the announcement:

Thanks to quantum leaps in facial recognition technology, especially over the past year, the future is arriving sooner than most Americans realize. As early as this summer, CBP will set up a pilot program to digitally scan the faces of drivers and passengers — while they are in moving vehicles — at the busy Anzalduas Port of Entry outside of McAllen, the agency announced Thursday.

The Texas-Mexico border is being used as the testing grounds for the technology. The results of the pilot program will be used to help roll out a national program along the entire southern and northern borders. The Statesman notes that the Department of Energy hired researchers at Tennessee’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory to help overcome the difficulties of using facial recognition technology on moving vehicles. The researchers developed a method for combating window tinting and sun glare which can make a vehicle’s windows impenetrable to cameras. The facial recognition technology being developed for the pilot program will be capable of identifying the driver, front passengers, and the passengers riding in the back.

The CBP currently operates facial recognition exit programs at almost a dozen international airports in the United States. Colleen Manaher, the CBP’s executive director of planning, program analysis and evaluation, told the Statesman that travelers have been accepting of the technology and noted that “we can thank the Apples and the Googles for that.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Mastercard Pushes Biometrics, Banks Follow

January 26, 2018

Mastercard Pushes Biometrics, Banks Follow

Biometric authentication “will be of great benefit to everyone.”

Mastercard has set a deadline for widespread use of biometric identification for its services across the whole of the EU: April 2019. Mastercard Identity Check, currently available in 37 countries, enables individuals to use biometric identifiers, such as fingerprint, facial, and iris recognition, to verify their identities when using a mobile device for online shopping and banking. The technology is not mandatory for customers, but from next year it will be vigorously promoted throughout the EU and many consumers will welcome it.

The impact will be felt not just by consumers but also by most European banks, since any bank that issues or accepts Mastercard payments will have to support identification mechanisms for remote transactions, alongside existing PIN and password verification. The deadline will also apply to all contactless transactions made at terminals with a mobile device.

Citing research it carried out with Oxford University, Mastercard says that 92% of banking professionals want to introduce biometric ID. This high number shouldn’t come as much of a surprise given the vast untapped value consumer data holds for banks and corporations as well the preference most banks have for electronic transactions. The study also claims that 93% of consumers would prefer biometric security to passwords, which is a surprise given the array of thorny issues biometrics throws up, including the threat it poses to privacy and anonymity and its deceptively public nature.

“A password is inherently private,” says Alvaro Bedoya, Professor of Law at Georgetown University. “The whole point of a password is that you don’t tell anyone about it. A credit card is inherently private in the sense that you only have one credit card.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

DHS Announces Program to ILLEGALLY Scan Our Faces—And They’re Forcing Us to Pay For It

December 29, 2017

DHS Announces Program to ILLEGALLY Scan Our Faces—And They’re Forcing Us to Pay For It

Both Congress and the Department of Homeland Security have never justified the biometric scanners at airports that could cost Americans $1 billion in 2018.

As TSA agents continue to prove their incompetence in the “War on Terror,” the Department of Homeland Security is now allocating $1 billion in taxpayer funding to create a facial recognition program that will illegally scan Americans’ faces.

A study conducted by Georgetown Law’s Center for Privacy and Technology looked at the biometric scanners that are creating an inventory of the faces of individuals leaving the country at airports across the United States. While they are only at certain major airports right now, the full implementation of these scanners could cost Americans up to $1 billion.

The study noted that while the “9/11 Response and Biometric Exit Account” created by Congress has the funds for the program, “neither Congress nor DHS has ever justified the need for the program.”

In addition to the fact that Congress has never provided a reason why the system is needed in the U.S., the study claimed that DHS has “repeatedly questioned ‘the additional value biometric air exit would provide’ compared with the status quo and the ‘overall value and cost of a biometric air exit capability,’ even as it has worked to build it.”

Not only is a government agency pouring $1 billion into a program to increase the country’s security measures even though it lacks full confidence, and has no evidence that the program it is implementing will do so, there is also the fact that the program requires Americans to give up their civil liberties, and it has never been explicitly authorized by the government. As the researchers from Georgetown Law noted:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Arizona Citizens Tracked In Facial Recognition Database In First Step For REAL ID Implementation

December 6, 2017

Arizona Citizens Tracked In Facial Recognition Database In First Step For REAL ID Implementation

Arizona citizens are now in a government database that uses facial recognition technology to track them simply for getting a driver’s license. This allows federal and local law enforcement to use the “perpetual lineup” of suspects not accused of a crime to see if someone is wanted for a crime, Arizona Capitol Times reported.

The state says that the program is to prevent identity theft and fraud. Here’s how it works according to Arizona Capitol Times.

After someone at the Motor Vehicle Division takes your photo, your face is scanned by a system based on a proprietary algorithm that analyzes facial features. The system compares your face against the 19 million photos in the state’s driver’s license database to look for similarities. If an image is similar enough, the system will flag it for further review.

The program is an effort that is part of a nationwide initiative called the REAL ID Act that was created by Congress in 2005 as a response to the September 11th terror attacks. The system allows the state to comply with the federal act, which increased standards for identification documents. Although the REAL ID Act does not explicitly call for facial recognition, it does maintain that states need to take measures to reduce fraud.

The Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) already has publicly boasted about the success with more than 100 cases it has taken to court for fraud using the technology, which has been in place since early 2015.

But the use of the system to prevent identity theft isn’t what people are worried about; the problem is the lack of oversight in government programs that allows anyone with access to look into the database. As such, state-run facial recognition databases are dangerous and can lead down a slippery slope to allow other operations the technology wasn’t intended for.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Surveillance State: An Inexorable March Toward Totalitarianism

November 11, 2017

The Surveillance State: An Inexorable March Toward Totalitarianism

mass-surveillance2

Gizmodo released an article entitled “US Homeland Security Wants Facial Recognition to Identify People in Moving Cars,” on 11/2/17 by Matt Novak. The Surveillance State has slowed down its rate of growth since the President took office, however, it has not halted that growth. Instead, it lies festering below the veneer of daily events, inexorably growing its tentacles and extending their reach. Akin to an infestation of weeds, the roots are deep within the fabric of our communications networks: telephones, CCTV (Closed-Circuit Television) cameras, the Internet…all are thoroughly permeated.

Here is an excerpt from that article:

The proposed program would allow Homeland Security to maintain a database of everyone who leaves and enters the US that would now include photos taken by spying robot-cameras at every border crossing. Not only does DHS want this new facial recognition program to work without anyone having to exit their vehicle, the agency wants it to work even if the travelers are wearing things like sunglasses and hats. DHS also wants it to work without cars having to stop.

Seems they really want our information for their database. There is something more. One of the readers on the article’s website who uses the handle “Artiofab” posted this comment that is important, as he lives on the Texas border with Mexico:

“11/02/17 12:31pm Hi everybody I live near the US-MX border so I’m happy to give informed opinions on this topic, since I know that a lot of the audience at Gizmodo dot com apparently lives closer to the US-CA border.

Near the US-MX border along major US highways there are these interior checkpoints. If you’re traveling “into” the US (e.g., if you’re in New Mexico and you’re driving north) you stop your car, a USBP agent asks if you’re all US citizens, you say yes, they let you keep going.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Face of Surveillance: Malcolm Turnbull’s Recognition Database

October 10, 2017

The Face of Surveillance: Malcolm Turnbull’s Recognition Database

Never miss an opportunity in the security business. A massacre in Las Vegas has sent its tremors through the establishments, and made its way across the Pacific into the corridors of Canberra and the Prime Minister’s office. Australia’s Malcolm Turnbull is very keen to make hay out of blood, and has suggested another broadening of the security state: the creation of a national facial recognition data base.

It stands to reason. Energy policy is in a state of free fall. The government’s broadband network policy has proven disastrous, uneven, inefficient and costly. Australia is falling back in the ranks, a point that Turnbull dismisses as “rubbish statistics” (importantly showing that President Donald Trump is not the only purveyor of fanciful figures).

The Turnbull government is also in the electoral doldrums, struggling to keep up with a Labor opposition which has shown signs of breaking away into a canter. The only thing keeping this government in scourers and saucepans is the prospect that Turnbull is the more popular choice of prime minister.

Enter, then, the prism of the national interest, the chances afforded to his political survival by the safety industrial complex. Turnbull, a figure who, when in the law, stressed the importance of various liberties, is attempting to convince all the governments of Australia that terrorism suspects can be detained for periods of up to 14 days without charge. Lazy law enforcement officials, rejoice.

Tagged to that agenda, one he wishes to run by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) in Canberra, is the fanciful need for a national facial recognition database. This dystopian fantasy of an information heavy, centralised database is one Australians have historically have opposed with admirable scepticism. It has been something that Anglophone countries have tended to cast a disapproving look upon, a feature of a civilization suspicious of intrusions made by the executive.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Certain U.S. Airlines Are Testing Mandatory Facial Recognition Scans on Americans Flying Abroad

June 23, 2017

Certain U.S. Airlines Are Testing Mandatory Facial Recognition Scans on Americans Flying Abroad

Just when you thought air travel couldn’t get any more invasive, authoritarian and downright miserable, the Department of Homeland Security and two U.S. carriers are determined to prove you wrong.

Yesterday, Harrison Rudolph, a law fellow at the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law, wrote a very troubling article at Slatetitled, DHS Is Starting to Scan Americans’ Faces Before They Get on International Flights. Here’s some of what we learned:

Decades ago, Congress mandated that federal authorities keep track of foreign nationals as they enter and leave the United States. If the government could record when every visitor stepped on and off of U.S. soil, so the thinking went, it could easily see whether a foreign national had overstayed a visa.

But in June of last year, without congressional authorization, and without consulting the public, the Department of Homeland Security started scanning the faces of Americans leaving the country, too.

You may have heard about new JetBlue or Delta programs that let passengers board their flights by submitting to a face recognition scan. Few realize, however, that these systems are actually the first phase of DHS’s “Biometric Exit” program.

For certain international flights from Atlanta and New York, DHS has partnered with Delta to bring mandatory face recognition scans to the boarding gate. The Delta system checks a passenger is supposed to be on the plane by comparing her face, captured by a kiosk at the boarding gate, to passenger manifest photos from State Department databases. It also checks passengers’ citizenship or immigration status. Meanwhile, in Boston, DHS has partnered with JetBlue to roll out a voluntary face recognition system for travelers flying to Aruba. In JetBlue’s case, you can actually get your face scanned instead of using a physical ticket.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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