WEBVTT - A Misguided Ban on Facial Recognition? Daniel Castro talks to Armstrong & Getty 0:00:00.640 --> 0:00:03.480 So we've been talking about this. This is an interesting one. 0:00:03.680 --> 0:00:08.320 As facial recognition software, it gets better and better. It's 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:11.480 it's got some cool ways to use it. Obviously, unlock 0:00:11.520 --> 0:00:13.640 your phone or if if you ever end up working 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:16.040 in a building where it uses your face as your 0:00:16.120 --> 0:00:18.000 key card to get into building or that sort of stuff, 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:20.360 that could be cool. But on the other hand, China 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:22.599 is using it to uh, to keep an eye on 0:00:22.640 --> 0:00:26.680 everybody all the time. It is absolutely a cherished new 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:30.440 tool for totalitarian regimes. So we're a little uncomfortable with 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:33.479 it and exploring it. Daniel Castro is the vice president 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:37.080 for the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, Director of i 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:40.640 t i F Center for Data Innovation. Joins us. Now, Daniel, 0:00:40.680 --> 0:00:43.040 how are you, sir? I'm good, Thanks for having me on. 0:00:43.360 --> 0:00:45.839 You are pro this sort of technology, is that correct? 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:48.920 That's right. I see a lot of potential benefits and 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:51.800 how can be used. So are you a communist? Have 0:00:51.880 --> 0:00:53.760 you ever been a member of the Communist Party? Well, 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:55.640 that's an interesting thing that you would ask that because 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:58.320 San Francisco is working on becoming the first city in 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:02.040 America to ban facial ignition software. There are a lefty 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:04.600 city and they think it's a scary things. I don't 0:01:04.600 --> 0:01:07.959 know what the politics of this are. Well, San Francisco 0:01:07.959 --> 0:01:10.160 seems to like to ban a lot of new technologies 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:14.560 to come after sidewalk robots, they've gone after the EA scooters, 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:17.400 and now they're doing facial recognition and to the history 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:21.080 of moving quickly in banning technology and the technology of straws, 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:25.959 right right, So listen, help us understand first of all 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:29.360 the practical uses of the technology. Let's get excited about 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:31.600 the technology. Then we'll get into the civil rights thing 0:01:31.600 --> 0:01:35.120 a little bit. Sure. So there's both commercial and government 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:38.399 uses right now of facial recognition. So people are increasingly 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:40.440 familiar with how you're using it on your phone to 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:43.800 unlock your device. Uh, you see it on social networks 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:46.560 to automatically sort photos based on who your friends are 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:49.000 in search through those. And then you're starting to see 0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:53.720 applications in the hospitality industry, for example. So the idea 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:56.480 is that you might be able to register for a 0:01:56.560 --> 0:01:59.000 hotel and then when you walk in, instead of having 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:01.960 to give your name and you know, your credit card 0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:04.720 and everything taken to have a camera that just recognizes 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:07.120 you and they can creach you automatically. That's pretty cool. 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:09.760 You just walk in the front lobby of the hotel. 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:12.960 Everything recognize you, you walk up, your door opens with 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:16.240 your credit card or whatever, and you go exactly and 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:19.000 your things much faster. I mean, we're seeing this in 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:21.040 airports right now, so you have some of these airlines 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:23.440 that you just you don't have to have a you know, 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:25.720 your ticket anymore. You just walk straight past the gate, 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:28.000 look into a camera, and move on and you're done. 0:02:28.320 --> 0:02:31.440 So lots of benefits there. What people are mostly concerned 0:02:31.440 --> 0:02:34.040 about right now is on the government side, particularly around 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:37.400 police using it for different reasons. They can use it 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:40.480 to quickly search for a suspect from you know, some 0:02:40.520 --> 0:02:44.000 surveillance footage. They can use it to create virtual lineups 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:47.160 of potential suspects. They can use it to help find 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:49.880 a lost child or an elderly adult for one of 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:52.280 those Amber Silver alerts. They can also use it to 0:02:52.280 --> 0:02:55.520 help identify where their offices are in the city. Lots 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:58.360 of different uses there. And what's interesting is that, you know, 0:02:58.400 --> 0:03:00.800 these are things that a lot of times police officers 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:02.760 are doing right now manually, so right now when they're 0:03:02.760 --> 0:03:06.320 looking for a suspect. Sometimes these departments have just binders 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:08.920 full of photos of potential suspects and they just have 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:11.639 to leave through these looking for potential matches. And that's 0:03:11.639 --> 0:03:15.720 a really slow and time intensive process. And what they're 0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:18.440 doing now with the technology is they're able to search 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:21.480 through millions of records very quickly and identify with more 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:25.080 accuracy who potential suspects might be. Then they give that 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:28.359 information to officers whould go out and actually the those 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:30.880 are some some pretty good upsides to the whole thing. 0:03:30.880 --> 0:03:33.360 And did we make it clear that you're you're for 0:03:33.440 --> 0:03:36.080 this facial recognition stuff here. You don't like the idea 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:39.520 of San Francisco banning it? Um? Yeah, But now there 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:41.680 are all kinds of things that would make it easier 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:45.640 to you know, find criminals or whatever that we've avoided 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:47.720 throughout the history of our country. We have never had 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:51.200 a national fingerprint and database for instance, or that sort 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:53.720 of thing where it make it easier to find people. Well, 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:56.760 the really scary part about facial recognition though, is that, 0:03:57.120 --> 0:03:59.840 unlike other systems like fingerprints, for instance, it can be 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:03.600 is for general surveillance in a passive way. It doesn't 0:04:03.640 --> 0:04:05.840 require me to hold out my thumb or give a 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:08.480 fingerprint or let you check my fingerprints. I mean, it 0:04:08.600 --> 0:04:13.640 is an incredibly valuable tool for totalitarians or those who 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:16.960 would oppress anybody. I mean, you show up at a rally, 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:20.400 the authorities are going to know it. They'll just generate 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:22.640 a list, and so that sort of thing scary. Does 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:24.880 the industry have a position on that sort of thing, 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:28.560 Daniel Daniel Castros with us. Yeah. Absolutely. I think you know, 0:04:28.760 --> 0:04:31.440 nobody wants the United States to become China in that 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:36.839 regards what the type of totalitarian surveillance isn't something that anyone, 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:40.000 an industry or outside industry is calling for. But the 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:42.159 whole point is there's a there's a big gray area 0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:45.600 in between, and there's also kind of just replicating things 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:48.919 that were already doing today with the technology, but more efficiently. 0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:51.240 And that's what the problem with the DAN is. It 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:54.520 would be completely fine that San Francisco was saying, let's 0:04:54.520 --> 0:04:57.760 make sure this technology is never used to, for example, 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:00.080 you know, track people throughout the entire city. Let to 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:02.880 make sure this is never used to track people at 0:05:02.920 --> 0:05:05.159 political rallies. But that's not what they're doing. They're saying, 0:05:05.240 --> 0:05:08.160 let's make sure we never use the technology anywhere across 0:05:08.160 --> 0:05:12.080 the entire government, and that's a problem. Interesting. Daniel Castro 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:16.280 is the VP for the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:19.360 Director of I T i F Center for Data Innovation. Daniel, 0:05:19.440 --> 0:05:22.520 we appreciate the chat. Thanks, happy to be here, all right. 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:25.279 You know some of that stuff about finding uh, you know, 0:05:25.320 --> 0:05:28.719 a lost kid or an old ster with Alzheimer's wanting around. 0:05:28.920 --> 0:05:31.160 You know, obviously those are those are good arguments for that, 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:34.599 but you got you gotta trust that once you allow 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:37.200 these tools to be in place, that then then they 0:05:37.240 --> 0:05:39.159 aren't gonna be misused. And I just don't have that 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:42.840 trust you. Well, you would have to have a stringent 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:46.960 and utterly clear set of restrictions on them. But I 0:05:46.960 --> 0:05:49.279 will I will tell you the history of mankind is 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:53.279 that those who would misuse whatever technologies are opportunities that 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:56.919 exist to oppress people, find ways around them. It's like 0:05:57.000 --> 0:06:00.760 campaign finance reform. You give your your bundlers and your 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:03.480 experts ten minutes, they'll read the law, they'll say, oh, 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:05.279 no problem, we'll just do this and route it through that, 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:09.320 and they just beat it. And that's what concerns me. Yeah, 0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:12.440 it seems that the biggest thing that Georgia Orriel missed 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:16.040 about the surveillance state from was that we're just gonna 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:19.480 opt into it. It's gonna be so convenient, and it's 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:22.479 gonna just seem like such a a nonstarter. Yeah, of 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:25.200 course I'm gonna have my phone linked to my location 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:28.320 because that makes it easier for when I'm mapping directions 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:31.760 right neat a ride sharing thing. This whole getting on 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:34.360 a plane, getting into a hotel thing is so convenient, 0:06:34.400 --> 0:06:37.279 I'll overlook the other part of it. It's seductive, literally, 0:06:37.320 --> 0:06:40.520 and that's what Huxley got right. We'd be seduced into oppression, 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:45.760 not beaten into it. Um. But you know the other hand, 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:48.400 I do hate standing there with my bag on my 0:06:48.400 --> 0:06:51.880 shoulder waiting for the damn hotel clerk. I mean, who 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:56.960 enjoys the freaks? Right? We just stroll into the hotel, 0:06:57.120 --> 0:07:00.160 smile at the camera there it's Joe, I'm here, and 0:07:00.279 --> 0:07:03.480 walk up to my palatial suite and then and then 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:07.839 that will be like phone records are currently that the 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:10.360 government can access pretty much any time they want to, 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:14.280 because it's known that any time they ask for that information, 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:17.480 it's always given to them right there. It will require 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:20.680 a warrant unless you know it's voluntarily handed over, and 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:24.800 the government says to uh, large hotel chain, listen to 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:28.320 some of your environmental practices aren't so great, and I'd 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:29.920 hate for the e p A to get all up 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:33.320 in your business. How about does facial recognition records years? 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:35.600 Do you mind hand them over? Oh? Yeah, yeah, we 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:39.120 could do that. Sure, Okay, that's how it works. Study 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:43.440 history fools. On the other hand, this is really cool technology. 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:45.600 And again, the politics are kind of interesting. You've got 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:48.040 a lefty city like San Francisco looking at being the 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:51.280 first city to ban the facial recognition stuff. There will 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:55.880 probably be some you know, right wing city that's full 0:07:55.920 --> 0:07:59.160 of conservatives using finger quotes because these these labels are 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:01.600 not very good in these instance. Indeed, who don't want 0:08:01.600 --> 0:08:05.560 it in their city either. Yeah. Yeah, certainly your libertarian 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:07.720 type conservatives are going to be uncomfortable with it. The 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:11.440 interesting thing about the left, and again, those those words 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:15.840 are are decreasingly useful. But the interesting thing about the 0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:21.520 left is that they really cherish freedom from the authorities 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:24.920 until they become the authority. Then they are so utterly 0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:29.400 convinced of their own righteousness they oppress everybody, um and 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:33.040 then you know, they become indistinguishable from the right. Really well, 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:36.640 get down. Here's a question for you. Do you think 0:08:36.640 --> 0:08:39.200 in I don't know how many years, twenty years, fifty years, 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:42.720 how long it will take, we'll have a similar system, 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:45.400 if not the federal government, at least like local government 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:47.760 or state government. Where they got the cameras on the corners, 0:08:47.760 --> 0:08:49.960 will have We've already got those everywhere. There will be 0:08:49.960 --> 0:08:51.679 even more of them, and they'll do the same thing 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:53.360 to do in China where it picks up your faces 0:08:53.360 --> 0:08:56.120 you cross the street on computers, picking up on the okay, 0:08:56.120 --> 0:08:59.040 here's somebody. They have some outstanding parking tickets, they're behind 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:01.920 on their taxes. All that information will be constantly they'll 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:04.040 keep a track of where you go. I absolutely think 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:07.280 that will happen. Yeah, I'm afraid it will. And and 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:10.240 sorry to be checking around all sorts of political theory 0:09:10.280 --> 0:09:12.320 at you, but there are quite a few on on 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:15.600 the libertarian side of things, including iron Rand, whatever you 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:17.600 think of her. Her idea was that there would be 0:09:17.720 --> 0:09:22.120 so many crimes large and small that everybody would be 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:25.280 guilty of something. And that's about where we are right now. 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:30.000 So once you are a criminal, the government is justified 0:09:30.000 --> 0:09:32.920 in doing about anything they want, including you know, the 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:35.760 stuff you were describing. So yes, I definitely think we'll 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:38.000 have that system, at least in big cities in the 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:41.640 future where they're doing that facial recognition thing and everything 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:44.120 about you is you know. Uh brought up on a 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:46.320 computer and kept track of At the same time, Old 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:48.680 iron Land Iron Rand was a little over the top 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:51.880 and wrote unnecessarily long and dull passages in her books, 0:09:52.040 --> 0:09:55.440 but she got a lot right, And uh, I think 0:09:55.520 --> 0:09:58.679 we're seeing some of it happening. You know. You you 0:09:58.840 --> 0:10:02.920 give a government capability, they will misuse it eventually. It's 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:04.480 just the way humans work.