Google Glass app called NameTag allows you to ID strangers by looking at them
Have you ever seen someone wearing Google Glass out at the bar? Like a real person at a real bar actually wearing Google Glass? If so, you know how absolutely ridiculous they look. Which may be the only factor we have that will stop this:
A new app will allow total strangers to ID you and pull up all your information, just by looking at you and scanning your face with their Google Glass. The app is called NameTag and it sounds CREEPY.
The "real-time facial recognition" software "can detect a face using the Google Glass camera, send it wirelessly to a server, compare it to millions of records, and in seconds return a match complete with a name, additional photos and social media profiles."
The information listed could include your name, occupation, any social media profiles you have set up and whether or not you have a criminal record ("Criminal History Found" pops up in bright red letters according to the demo).
And NameTag may have already added you to their database.
Two million entries have already been uploaded to FacialNetwork.com. Once the app officially goes live, you can sign up for NameTag and opt-out, instead of the alternative: Having to opt-in to allow them to show your information.
http://www.eonline.com/news/507361/just-when-you-thought-google-glass-couldn-t-get-creepier-new-app-allows-strangers-to-id-you-just-by-looking-at-you
3-D facial recognition glasses to be used by police in the future:
Allen Yang is a University of California at Berkeley researcher and founder of Atheer Labs, is developing the glasses.
The 3-D glasses are a wearable computer where users are wirelessly immersed in their own computer through virtual images.
“…And it’s streaming live from the internet to your glasses,” said Theo Goguely, senior product manager at Atheer.
One of the company's goals is for use by law enforcement. It's all about profits at the expense of our rights!
Police wearing the glasses could scan a crowd and possibly locate a suspect or identify activist's.
Current facial recognition programs were limited in identifying the low resolution images of the suspects from surveillance cameras.
But Yang said Atheer has developed a better mousetrap. Even if 60 percent of the image is corrupted, Yang said his company’s technology can convert it to an identifiable image.
Yang said the program will be available within two or three years and could help police identify known suspects before they commit another crime.
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/02/04/bay-area-researcher-developing-facial-recognition-glasses-to-help-stop-crime/
NYPD is beta-testing Google Glass:
The New York City Police Department’s massive and controversial intelligence and analytics unit is evaluating whether Google Glass is a decent fit for investigating terrorists and helping cops lock up bad guys, VentureBeat has learned. The department recently received several pairs of the modernist-looking specs to test out.
“We signed up, got a few pairs of the Google glasses, and we’re trying them out, seeing if they have any value in investigations, mostly for patrol purposes,” a ranking New York City law enforcement official told VentureBeat.
“We’re looking at them, you know, seeing how they work.”
The glasses are currently only available through Google’s Glass Explorer program, in which people who interested in acquiring them first apply and then receive notification from Google on whether it accepts or denies their application. Respondents who get the green light must pay $1,500 for the privilege.
The news that the country’s largest police department is eagerly beta-testing Google’s products comes at a sensitive time for the company, given its entanglement in various intelligence-gathering efforts from spy agencies in the U.S. and abroad. Not that Google is happy about that: Google chairman Eric Schmidt blew a gasket when it was revealed that the NSA was routinely hacking into the company’s servers to spy on customers, as outlined in documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
A spokesman for Google said the company was not working with law enforcement agencies on the project and that the NYPD likely acquired the glasses through the Google Glass Explorer program.
“The Google Glass Explorer program includes people from all walks of life, including doctors, firefighters and parents. Anyone can sign up to become a Glass Explorer, provided he or she is a U.S. resident and over the age of 18,” read the wooden company response to my questions.
This isn’t the first time the NYPD has embraced new tech platforms: In 2012, the NYPD and Microsoft worked together to build the Domain Awareness System, a tool for gathering and managing surveillance data for counterterrorism efforts.
http://venturebeat.com/2014/02/05/nypd-google-glass/
How Taser plans to profit by supplying police with facial recognition glasses:
Taser International, the company that popularized the use of stun guns in everyday police work, is set to experiment with where Google Glass might take law enforcement. The company’s co-founder and CEO, Rick Smith tells us that Taser has been accepted onto the Glass Explorer program and is excited about digging into the technology.
Taser's AXON Flex camera, the latest iteration of which launched last year and is worn by police officers to record evidence from incidents as they work their patrols. As the camera captures evidence, the video is sent by Bluetooth to an iPhone or Android device and streamed over 3G to Taser’s cloud platform, Evidence.com. From here, officers can later watch back and download anything important.
For more information about Taser's AXON Flex and Evidence.com and the privacy issues they raise, click here.
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/04/05/taser/#!uGqTd
http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/5/4162478/tasers-axon-flex-cop-camera-takes-aim-at-privacy
Government wants to establish guidelines for facial recognition technologies:
The Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration to begin studying the use of facial recognition technologies in use by companies like Facebook and the FBI.
There is no standard for the use of these technologies right now, and Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) is worried about “entities like the FBI and Facebook” that “have begun to build large facial recognition databases on their own terms.”
“My hope is that it will set out basic rules of the road that industry leaders can follow — and Congress can use as a roadmap for a 21st Century privacy law,” he said of the Commerce agency’s process in a statement to The Hill.
Trusting the gov't. to set guidelines is a joke right NSA?
Their aim is to establish voluntary guidelines for companies using the technologies.
One huge question for participants is the scope.
While some may want to address specific uses of facial recognition technology, Joseph Lorenzo Hall, chief technologist at the Center for Democracy and Technology, said the code should address privacy implications across all uses of facial recognition technology.
“We’re happy to have specific measures that extend the general code, but a narrow code that only works for one or a few of facial recognition uses such as social networking, retail settings, digital signs, mobile apps, etc. would be disappointing,” he said.
All the industry cares about is profits and limited to no regulation!
Carl Szabo, policy counsel for NetChoice, said the code should focus on certain uses of facial recognition technology.
“The process should focus on sharing rather than any and all uses of facial recognition,” said Szabo, whose group represents Yahoo and Facebook. “With that limited focus, stakeholders can create guidelines appropriate for different contexts such as stores, banks, online, courtrooms, and airports.”
http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/197238-this-week-in-tech-standards-eyed-for-facial-recognition
School board considers banning biometrics for students:
Tallahassee, FL - Polk County parents were apoplectic last year when they discovered the school district had been scanning the irises of students’ eyes without parental permission.
The controversial practice might soon be banned.
On Tuesday, state lawmakers will take up a proposal that would prohibit school districts from collecting biometric information, including the characteristics of fingerprints, hands, eyes and the voice. It would affect the Pinellas County school district, which allows schools to scan the palms of students’ hands instead of accepting cash in the cafeteria, and school systems that use fingerprint scanners.
“We’ve been able to get kids through a lunch line for decades,” said state Sen. Dorothy Hukill, a Port Orange Republican who brought the idea to the Florida Senate. “Why do we need to take their biometric information when we know there is the potential for identity theft?”
But the idea may meet resistance from local school boards, some of which want the flexibility to create their own policies.
“Biometrics is coming,” said Miami-Dade School Board member Raquel Regalado, who spearheaded an effort to create a local biometrics policy this month. “It exists in the market. It will exist in our schools. It may end up being a viable way to ensure there isn’t fraud.”
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/02/02/3909538/lawmakers-to-consider-banning.html#storylink=cpy
“I’m very concerned any time personal information is collected,” said Mindy Gould, the legislation chair for the Florida PTA. “There is nothing to convince me that this data would be secure, and that it wouldn’t be released to private vendors.”
In addition to banning biometric data collection, the proposal specifies that parents must be notified annually about their rights regarding education records, as already required by federal law.
The bill also prohibits districts from collecting information on the political affiliation, voting history or religious affiliation of a student, a student’s parent or a student’s sibling. And it clarifies that personally identifiable data would not go to the federal government unless required by federal law.
“There is a reason for the state to collect some [education] information and there is a reason for that information to be shared with other states,” said Sen. John Legg, R-Trinity, who chairs the Senate Education Committee. “But that data should not be identifiable at an individual level. We need to make sure we have proper safeguards to ensure that individual, identifiable student data is not shared.”
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/02/02/3909538/lawmakers-to-consider-banning.html#storylink=cpyhttp://www.miamiherald.com/2014/02/02/3909538/lawmakers-to-consider-banning.html