DragonI

Police in China are scanning travelers with facial recognition glasses

As travel ramps up for the lunar new year, police are scanning travelers for those evading the law.

www.engadget.com

Police in China are now sporting glasses equipped with facial recognition devices and they're using them to scan train riders and plane passengers for individuals who may be trying to avoid law enforcement or are using fake IDs. So far, police have caught seven people connected to major criminal cases and 26 who were using false IDs while traveling, according to People's Daily.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Beijing-based LLVision Technology Co. developed the devices. The company produces wearable video cameras as well and while it sells those to anyone, it's vetting buyers for its facial recognition devices. And, for now, it isn't selling them to consumers.

• Last month, reports surfaced that China was using facial recognition to geo-fence residents of the Muslim-dominated Xinjiang region of the country, a move that has attracted criticism from a number of human rights groups. 
• China is also working on building a facial recognition database that will contain info on all of its 1.3 billion citizens. 

Facebook Can Now Find Your Face, Even When It's Not Tagged

A new Facebook tool deploys facial-recognition to identify users in photos, even when they're not tagged.

www.wired.com

1. Privacy is no longer a “social norm”, Mark Zuckerberg, The Guardian -  Jan. 2010
2. Zuckerberg buys four houses located next door and behind his own home in Palo Alto. Why? PRIVACY, Mercury News -  Oct. 2013
3. People are upset over Mark Zuckerberg building a 6-foot wall around his 700 acres of Hawaiian land, Business Insider Jun. 2016

“We’ve thought about this as a really empowering feature. There may be photos that exist that you don’t know about.”,  Facebook’s head of privacy, Rob Sherman

Informing you of their existence is also good for Facebook:

• More notifications flying around means more activity from users and more ad impressions.
• More people tagging themselves in photos adds more data to Facebook’s cache, helping to power the lucrative ad-targeting business that keeps the company afloat. 

The social network already works with data brokers to link Facebook users’ online activity and profiles with offline behavior.

As part of the new feature, Facebook will also notify users if someone else attempts to use their photo in a profile; Facebook says it’s trying to make it harder to impersonate other people.

If you don’t like the sound of all that, you may want to take advantage of a revamped privacy control Facebook also launched Tuesday. You could already opt out of Facebook’s facial-recognition-powered photo tag suggestions, but the setting’s description delicately avoided using the term facial recognition.

A new version of the setting that allows you to turn off facial recognition altogether does use the phrase, perhaps making it easier for people to understand what they’re already allowing.

The next front in the net neutrality war: Feds versus the states

States like Washington and New York are gearing up to fight the FCC’s recent repeal.

www.recode.net|Tony Romm

The order adopted by the FCC on Thursday doesn’t just kill the existing net neutrality rules — it explicitly seeks to override local policymakers from pursuing their own laws. And the FCC’s Republicans on Thursday signaled that they’d vigorously pursue any states that tried that anyway.

“I hope that most states and localities will not waste time and resources attempting to push the boundaries, but I realize that some will do so regardless,”

“I expect the agency to be vigilant in identifying and pursuing these cases. I also commit to work closely with [agency leadership] to help quash any conflicts that arise.”

Michael O’Rielly, FCC commissioner  #Plutocracy