Facial Recognition Software Being used by Authorities in England.

Hell, I want everyone to be required to get full military training (actually serving is optional) as soon as they leave secondary education (translation: high school).

"This thread has gone so far south it's surrounded by nesting penguins. " — Madrugada

Good luck...

I am now known as Flyboy.

To be honest... the cameras are probably a good solution. The one way that trained citizens are superior is immediacy; cameras can't intervene in a crime in progress. People can. So as long as there are people around, there's a means of, say, stopping a gang of thugs from kicking someones head in.

Cameras have their place, but they can't completely replace the human element. On the other hand, there aren't always people around either. Thats where you need the cameras.

EDIT: Lessinath, what use is military training that law enforcement training can't provide instead? The latter is more immediately useful while the former is only useful if there is a war. Both instill discipline and a sense of commonality.

edited 12th Aug '11 2:56:30 PM by GameChainsaw

The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.

Even I'll agree that given a choice between the two, police training would be more useful than military training. Given that most citizens are not going to be going off to fight in a war (hopefully).

Through the eyes I have known you.

Just thought I'd weigh in here folks..

The Police probably wouldn't like this idea all that much, if it's mandatory that means even criminals get police training.

The biggest advantage an officer has is that your average dumbass isn't mentally prepared or familiar with the operating procedures of the police force. Also remember, citizens arrests are very precarious. If you wrongfully or incorrectly arrest someone, there are severe consequences for such.

^^

To be fair, military or police training would both make someone a better person since they would be used to being able to exercise and defend themselves. It would certainly go a long way towards whooping obesity's ass in the USA.

I'm still not a huge supporter of the concept though. The USA has all sorts of volunteer programs that vary in how involved they are, such as CERT and volunteer police initiatives. The scale and involvement of both varies though.

edited 12th Aug '11 3:08:46 PM by Barkey

Yeah I was going to wonder how much of a good thing everyone being trained as a cop would be, for pretty much all the reasons Barkey brought up.

Through the eyes I have known you.

EDIT: @Barkey: I wrote all this before you made your edit.

I'd thought about that. But don't honest citizens always outnumber the thugs?

That said, your point about citizens arrests being shaky stands. So you'd have to plan for how to make them less of a fine line.

The police are extremely selective about who they let in. Thats for a reason...

Alright, I concede there are problems with this idea. Its very strong symbolically and gives people, I think, a sense of being empowered. It also means that there is someone closer to hand in an emergency that can actually do something. I want people to be able to do something to help themselves. I don't like the idea of people just sitting back.

Part of the reason this shone out like a diamond to me was that it gives people real power in a situation where their rights are being violated. It doesn't strip away peoples rights and protections, it empowers people in a situation where otherwise they would be helpless. It encourages people to take a pride in their communities, a sense of connection that so many of our youths are lacking. It gives a marketable set of skills that can be used anywhere in the world (and would probably make Britain a more attractive place for business... and that goes for anywhere that adopted the system.)

There are flaws. But there also seem to be great opportunities. Criminals always outnumber police. But honest people always outnumber the criminals. At its most basic, the idea comes down to weight of numbers combined with decent training and the psychology that goes with being a trained person. And Barkey, wouldn't a lot of the problems with hotheaded citizens go away if people were given proper training?

EDIT: I heard people knocking the Special Constables. I think the SO's were a great idea. But yeah, they can't replace proper full-time police. This mustn't replace the professionals, but supplement them.

edited 12th Aug '11 3:18:20 PM by GameChainsaw

The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.

What You Are in the Dark? Probably a good person, Chainsaw.

What Everyone Is In The Dark? Humans Are Bastards.

It's been said that society exists for the betterment of humanity. This isn't entirely true. Society exists more too keep people in line, because without it, we'd kill each other.

edited 12th Aug '11 3:21:58 PM by USAF713

I am now known as Flyboy.

It depends on the society. And while there were a heck of a lot of folk from all walks of life in those riots, it certainly wasn't anywhere near the majority.

20% of the people cause 80% of the trouble. In fact, its probably closer to 10%. The trick is how the 90% respond.

The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.

The response is usually "it's not my problem." If people were honestly good about helping each other, we wouldn't have to have so many police officers.

There's a reason they say to yell "Fire!" instead of "Help!" You'll get more assistance if people think they can be heroes without much actual personal involvement or chance of injury, and the Bile Fascination will always attract somebody.

edited 12th Aug '11 3:28:03 PM by USAF713

I am now known as Flyboy.

Chainsaw, your intentions are good, but perhaps you should become a Special Constable and leave everyone else to make their own choice? Then you can have your own impact.

I've been considering becoming a reserve police officer in town for a while, especially now that I'm kind of winding down to being lower key in the military these days and considering getting out.

I don't dispute that. People are selfish, people get scared, and people forget their high moral values when it really counts. And I'm certainly not free of that. I've let people down lots of times, in ways ranging from major to minor.

But if we don't even try to confront that problem? We get a culture of it where people don't even try to fight that impulse.

I guess I'd better put my money where my mouth is and join the Special Constables when I get back home.

EDIT: Ninja'd on the SO point.

edited 12th Aug '11 3:36:10 PM by GameChainsaw

The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.

Folks unique takes on police powers for citizens is not the topic. As interesting as it is. The topic at hand is use of facial recognition software coupled with various means of gathering the pictures to use said sysetm from public places.

Who watches the watchmen?

The whole point was that he thought that citizen-police should be used in lieu of cameras. That didn't pan out, though...

I am now known as Flyboy.

Well, to get back to the cameras... this did sorta take over but I stand by my points.

It strikes me as an excellent approach in terms of helping to make arrests, and I can't really take the breach of privacy seriously. You're only going to get your face analysed if you break the law, and if you didn't, its a way to vindicate you.

The danger is in false positives.

edited 12th Aug '11 3:48:44 PM by GameChainsaw

The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.

"Innocent until proven guilty"

This should be like the lie detector: good for a grand jury indictment, but not for actual conviction evidence.

I am now known as Flyboy.

Well in that case it strikes me as about as reliable as "expert witnesses".

A good way of getting innocents landed in jail because they looked to similar. Assuming the technology was falliable like that. Which I've seen no evidence for.

The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.

You could possibly have a problem with swelling in the face, injury, surgery, health issues, partial matches, matches based on a composite. Again for maximum accuracy they need to see as much of the face as possible. Multiple angles of facial views increases the accuracy.

Another downside is having a camera that has sufficient resolution and focus depending on the range of use for the camera.

This could be a handy tool for finding specific people or even pointing authorities in the right direction. Until they make it as accurate as possible though I do not see this as being a good tool for evidence.

Who watches the watchmen?

No, Savage is right. All that would be needed is a about the processing power of a slightly outdated PC for each camera's feed to analyze all the faces in range every few seconds, storing their position and size in-frame. Collated with the (already known) position and facing of each camera, a database could easily be constructed containing the location of every person seen on every camera connected to the system.

Detecting actual crimes would of course require human labor, but where this would really kick in is if somebody decided you, someone you knew, or somewhere you go merited investigation. What would happen then? Poof, suddenly, records of your movements, those of people whose schedules regularly coincided with yours, and of everyone who frequents the same places as you are instantly on hand, and covertly putting a tail on you becomes much easier.

That depends on your definition of “organized crime.” I honestly couldn't care less about the effects of this on minor crimes, if the system worked ideally, those guilty would be punished, and laws found too onerous to enforce would be repealed, but “overenforcement” has never been the flaw in such systems under a democracy.

The real problem is corruption preying on law-abiding citizens. What if this was used to crack down on organized labor? Or whistleblowers? By corrupt police to quash the careers of honest cops? By domineering politicians to keep tabs on journalists, rival politicians, and NGOs? By dishonest businesses to defraud their competitors? That last one has already happened with the CIA's decades-old Echelon satellite program, which is rife with charges of cronyism and corporate espionage by private contractors.

Eric,

Will the police not using them stop this sort of technology anyway? I suppose you could blanket ban it. Or restrict it to police use.

The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.

It's not really all that dangerous except as part of a large system tied into an enormous database. If practically any human effort is needed, it becomes no more dangerous than a stakeout with a pair of binoculars.

Eric,

^^

The government has to participate to make it anywhere worthwhile, simply because they are the only ones with that big ass database of pictures and information on all citizens.

As mentioned before, a private company could impliment this technology in their facilities and places of business, but they wouldn't be able to readily identify people who weren't in their own localized database.

Although multiple businesses could tie their systems together, especially if they farmed out their surveillance operations to the same coven of security contractors.

Eric,

Eric; Trust me an oudated pc would not work at all. The programs that utilize these cameras are very resource intensive and takes a fair amount of power to run a few cameras full time. Even more so if the cameras are pan tilt zoom types. No matter what you do you still need a lot of man in background sorting information, feeding in specific information, researching and the whole lot.

It is not anywhere as easy as you or savage think. It is expensive and resource intensive. The place where I work has to have a large dedicated server just for the cameras. The majority of cameras are also only watching entry points. The few that don't watch the parking lot. Running a program as complex as a facial recognition program ontop of running your digital CCTV system. You are going to need even more power.

Then there is even getting cameras of decent enough quality to be of use. Since you likely want these cameras up high for both height advantage and it keeps people from messing with the cams. You need a camera set up powerful enough to resolve images with sharp clarity. Expensive cameras do that. Even more then likely is that your going to want pan tilt zoom cameras to look around a crowd and can be used to zoom in on a specific individual when needed. Even more expensive and these require a human in the look.

So when your done setting up your plethora of mid to high grade cameras, connecting them all to a few servers and specialized data centers which in turn connect various expensive computer and control units. Then you have to man the posts with people JUST TO WATCH THE CAMERAS!. Then you have the rest of the logistics ie trying to track a specific individual. You need very specific information and resources dedicated to finding, following, and tracking that one person.

Cameras are also not perfect they have several flaws, weaknesses, and are vulnerable to electrical issues. Facial recognition software as I already pointed out has several flaws and is far from perfect. Doing something as simple as wearing a scarf, ball cap, and glasses reduces the cameras chances of even picking you out in the first place. That is if you even hold your face up in way the cameras can get a clear view.

The state of absolute monitoring via cameras with facial recognition are still a long ways off. The police need good clear face shots to match pictures they have already bothered to collect that are also good clear face shots.

Who watches the watchmen?