Will Facial Recognition Lead To Face Off?
Posted by Michelle Moquin on June 4th, 2014
Good morning!
From The New York Times.
N.S.A. Collecting Millions of Faces From Web Images
The National Security Agency is harvesting huge numbers of images of people from communications that it intercepts through its global surveillance operations for use in sophisticated facial recognition programs, according to top-secret documents.
The spy agency’s reliance on facial recognition technology has grown significantly over the last four years as the agency has turned to new software to exploit the flood of images included in emails, text messages, social media, videoconferences and other communications, the N.S.A. documents reveal. Agency officials believe that technological advances could revolutionize the way that the N.S.A. finds intelligence targets around the world, the documents show. The agency’s ambitions for this highly sensitive ability and the scale of its effort have not previously been disclosed.
The agency intercepts “millions of images per day” — including about 55,000 “facial recognition quality images” — which translate into “tremendous untapped potential,” according to 2011 documents obtained from the former agency contractor Edward J. Snowden. While once focused on written and oral communications, the N.S.A. now considers facial images, fingerprints and other identifiers just as important to its mission of tracking suspected terrorists and other intelligence targets, the documents show.
“It’s not just the traditional communications we’re after: It’s taking a full-arsenal approach that digitally exploits the clues a target leaves behind in their regular activities on the net to compile biographic and biometric information” that can help “implement precision targeting,” noted a 2010 document.
One N.S.A. PowerPoint presentation from 2011, for example, displays several photographs of an unidentified man — sometimes bearded, other times clean-shaven — in different settings, along with more than two dozen data points about him. These include whether he was on the Transportation Security Administration no-fly list, his passport and visa status, known associates or suspected terrorist ties, and comments made about him by informants to American intelligence agencies.
It is not clear how many people around the world, and how many Americans, might have been caught up in the effort. Neither federal privacy laws nor the nation’s surveillance laws provide specific protections for facial images. Given the N.S.A.’s foreign intelligence mission, much of the imagery would involve people overseas whose data was scooped up through cable taps, Internet hubs and satellite transmissions.
Because the agency considers images a form of communications content, the N.S.A. would be required to get court approval for imagery of Americans collected through its surveillance programs, just as it must to read their emails or eavesdrop on their phone conversations, according to an N.S.A. spokeswoman. Cross-border communications in which an American might be emailing or texting an image to someone targeted by the agency overseas could be excepted.
Civil-liberties advocates and other critics are concerned that the power of the improving technology, used by government and industry, could erode privacy. “Facial recognition can be very invasive,” said Alessandro Acquisti, a researcher on facial recognition technology at Carnegie Mellon University. “There are still technical limitations on it, but the computational power keeps growing, and the databases keep growing, and the algorithms keep improving.”
State and local law enforcement agencies are relying on a wide range of databases of facial imagery, including driver’s licenses and Facebook, to identify suspects. The F.B.I. is developing what it calls its “next generation identification” project to combine its automated fingerprint identification system with facial imagery and other biometric data.
The State Department has what several outside experts say could be the largest facial imagery database in the federal government, storing hundreds of millions of photographs of American passport holders and foreign visa applicants. And the Department of Homeland Security is funding pilot projects at police departments around the country to match suspects against faces in a crowd.
The N.S.A., though, is unique in its ability to match images with huge troves of private communications.
“We would not be doing our job if we didn’t seek ways to continuously improve the precision of signals intelligence activities — aiming to counteract the efforts of valid foreign intelligence targets to disguise themselves or conceal plans to harm the United States and its allies,” said Vanee M. Vines, the agency spokeswoman.
She added that the N.S.A. did not have access to photographs in state databases of driver’s licenses or to passport photos of Americans, while declining to say whether the agency had access to the State Department database of photos of foreign visa applicants. She also declined to say whether the N.S.A. collected facial imagery of Americans from Facebook and other social media through means other than communications intercepts.
“The government and the private sector are both investing billions of dollars into face recognition” research and development, said Jennifer Lynch, a lawyer and expert on facial recognition and privacy at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco. “The government leads the way in developing huge face recognition databases, while the private sector leads in accurately identifying people under challenging conditions.”
Ms. Lynch said a handful of recent court decisions could lead to new constitutional protections for the privacy of sensitive face recognition data. But she added that the law was still unclear and that Washington was operating largely in a legal vacuum.
Laura Donohue, the director of the Center on National Security and the Law at Georgetown Law School, agreed. “There are very few limits on this,” she said.
Identity Intelligence: Image Is Everything
An excerpt of a document obtained by Edward J. Snowden, a former contractor with the National Security Agency, referring to the agency’s use of images in intelligence gathering.
Congress has largely ignored the issue. “Unfortunately, our privacy laws provide no express protections for facial recognition data,” said Senator Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota, in a letter in December to the head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which is now studying possible standards for commercial, but not governmental, use.
Facial recognition technology can still be a clumsy tool. It has difficulty matching low-resolution images, and photographs of people’s faces taken from the side or angles can be impossible to match against mug shots or other head-on photographs.
Dalila B. Megherbi, an expert on facial recognition technology at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, explained that “when pictures come in different angles, different resolutions, that all affects the facial recognition algorithms in the software.”
That can lead to errors, the documents show. A 2011 PowerPoint showed one example when Tundra Freeze, the N.S.A.’s main in-house facial recognition program, was asked to identify photos matching the image of a bearded young man with dark hair. The document says the program returned 42 results, and displays several that were obviously false hits, including one of a middle-age man.
But the technology is powerful. One 2011 PowerPoint showed how the software matched a bald young man, shown posing with another man in front of a water park, with another photo where he has a full head of hair, wears different clothes and is at a different location.
It is not clear how many images the agency has acquired. The N.S.A. does not collect facial imagery through its bulk metadata collection programs, including that involving Americans’ domestic phone records, authorized under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, according to Ms. Vines.
The N.S.A. has accelerated its use of facial recognition technology under the Obama administration, the documents show, intensifying its efforts after two intended attacks on Americans that jarred the White House. The first was the case of the so-called underwear bomber, in which Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian, tried to trigger a bomb hidden in his underwear while flying to Detroit on Christmas in 2009. Just a few months later, in May 2010, Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-American, attempted a car bombing in Times Square.
The agency’s use of facial recognition technology goes far beyond one program previously reported by The Guardian, which disclosed that the N.S.A. and its British counterpart, General Communications Headquarters, have jointly intercepted webcam images, including sexually explicit material, from Yahoo users.
The N.S.A. achieved a technical breakthrough in 2010 when analysts first matched images collected separately in two databases — one in a huge N.S.A. database code-named Pinwale, and another in the government’s main terrorist watch list database, known as Tide — according to N.S.A. documents. That ability to cross-reference images has led to an explosion of analytical uses inside the agency. The agency has created teams of “identity intelligence” analysts who work to combine the facial images with other records about individuals to develop comprehensive portraits of intelligence targets.
The agency has developed sophisticated ways to integrate facial recognition programs with a wide range of other databases. It intercepts video teleconferences to obtain facial imagery, gathers airline passenger data and collects photographs from national identity card databases created by foreign countries, the documents show. They also note that the N.S.A. was attempting to gain access to such databases in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran.
The documents suggest that the agency has considered getting access to iris scans through its phone and email surveillance programs. But asked whether the agency is now doing so, officials declined to comment. The documents also indicate that the N.S.A. collects iris scans of foreigners through other means.
In addition, the agency was working with the C.I.A. and the State Department on a program called Pisces, collecting biometric data on border crossings from a wide range of countries.
One of the N.S.A.’s broadest efforts to obtain facial images is a program called Wellspring, which strips out images from emails and other communications, and displays those that might contain passport images. In addition to in-house programs, the N.S.A. relies in part on commercially available facial recognition technology, including from PittPatt, a small company owned by Google, the documents show.
The N.S.A. can now compare spy satellite photographs with intercepted personal photographs taken outdoors to determine the location. One document shows what appear to be vacation photographs of several men standing near a small waterfront dock in 2011. It matches their surroundings to a spy satellite image of the same dock taken about the same time, located at what the document describes as a militant training facility in Pakistan.
*****
Thoughts? Blog me.
A Girl Says, Anonymous: Happy you liked it. I thought it was a good read too. Now…let’s see if it has any legs.
Peace out.
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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June 4th, 2014 at 12:11 pm
Ah, so that’s why they’re developing technology to recognize facials?
June 4th, 2014 at 12:13 pm
I think George Orwell’s classic 1984 needs an update… Any bids from the rest of you /. reading cellar dwelling SciFi nerds on what 2084 will be like? Will our kids and grandkids have micro drones hovering about them, recording their every utterance and their every move and reporting it to private corporations and/or christian conservative ayatollahs in Washington?
Will people be walking around with masks to avoid the omnipresent surveillance society? Will masks even be legal? In the UK hey’ve already entertained the idea of banning hooded garments because they enable you to hide your face from CCTV.
June 4th, 2014 at 12:14 pm
Why not start spying on the spies and publish every single move and action they make. Follow the spies by spying on them and publish the results. Not only celebrities are public goods, the spies who collect information should be must be as transparent as they live on and deal in public goods. What is good for the goose…
June 4th, 2014 at 12:15 pm
If you don’t want someone else to see it, don’t send it.
Pray tell, how do I get someone to not post pictures of me?
June 4th, 2014 at 12:15 pm
NSA Collecting Millions of Faces From Web Images
The National Security Agency is harvesting huge numbers of images of people from communications that it intercepts
Intercepted communications aren’t “the web.”
emails, text messages, social media, videoconferences
Apart from social media (largely), none of those things are “the web.”
June 4th, 2014 at 12:15 pm
It’s funny how little difference there is between what Facebook’s servers are doing and the NSA’s. I wonder who has more info on you.
June 4th, 2014 at 12:16 pm
The flip side of posting the most innocuous details of your life online for all to see. What did you THINK would happen?
June 4th, 2014 at 12:17 pm
Take a look at how much funding GCHQ receives from the NSA – it’s a significant amount of their total budget and has led to some concerns that they act more in the interests of the US than UK.
June 4th, 2014 at 1:22 pm
Predatory check-cashing and payday-lending companies have been exploiting working-class Americans for decades by charging outrageous fees and triple-digit interest rates.
But now we have a chance to give the millions of Americans without access to affordable basic financial services a fair, publicly owned alternative to payday lenders and big banks. Senator Elizabeth Warren has an exciting new proposal that would allow post offices around the country to offer basic financial services like check cashing and bill paying.
As a student organizer in Chicago, I’ve seen the devastating effects of economic injustice firsthand — and I want to be part of the solution. That’s why I started my own campaign on CREDOMobilize.com, which allows activists to start their own petitions. My petition, which is to Congress, says the following:
Millions of Americans lack access to affordable financial services like check cashing, bill paying and small loans. Please support Senator Warren’s postal banking proposal, which would allow the United States Postal Service to offer financial services at local post offices around the country.
According to study released in January by the United States Postal Service’s inspector general, 68 million Americans – nearly 1 in 4 households — are underserved by banks and forced to rely on exploitative and wildly expensive payday lenders. Many of these people spend as much as $2,400 each year on inflated interest rates and unnecessary fees.
Across the globe, countries like Japan, Germany and Kenya have had great success with postal banking. And for more than 50 years, post offices in the United States were also allowed to offer banking services. Despite the program’s widespread success, both at providing banking services and generating billions of dollars in revenue for the United States Postal Service, Congress ended the program in 1967.
Given the lack of access to affordable banking services currently experienced by tens of millions of Americans, Congress needs take immediate action to move forward Senator Warren’s proposal to bring a public option for financial services back to the United States.
June 4th, 2014 at 1:37 pm
GCHQ, NSA, and their equivalent agencies in Australia, Canada and NZ are all members of the “five eyes” spying group also known as ECHELON. Any time a law might restrict one from spying on citizens of their own country, they just have another member spy for them and hand over the info.
June 4th, 2014 at 1:40 pm
Open it up to the free market! Let the government bid on data if they want it so bad!
June 4th, 2014 at 1:41 pm
PERVERTS! VOYEURS!
June 4th, 2014 at 2:12 pm
We all know refined sugar is bad for your health…but this doesn’t stop us from wanting to have something sweet every now and again.
And as long as it’s done in moderation, there’s nothing wrong with giving into these cravings.
The problem is most of the sweets we eat are full of white Bakers sugar or high fructose corn syrup (HFSC)– highly processed items that can wreak havoc on your health.
So how can you get that sweetness you crave without the risks that come along with it?
It’s simple: you use natural forms of sweetener instead.
I know from experience that this is easier said than done. If you don’t have experience replacing sugars, you can easily end up with a huge culinary mess on your hands.
To help make this easier for you, I wrote down a few tips on how to use my 5 favorite replacements for refined sugar:
Agave Nectar
This syrup has been around since the days of the Aztecs, and has only gotten more popular over time. It’s great in coffee or tea, and can be used as a replacement for sugar in just about any recipe.
When using Agave to replace white sugar in baking, use 2/3 cup agave for every 1 cup sugar, and reduce the liquid by ¼ cup.
Yacon Syrup
This is a molasses-like syrup that is known for having some extreme health benefits, and may even boost your weight loss efforts. A lot of these health benefits are lost if you bake with this syrup, so I recommend using it to sweeten smoothies or hot beverages.
If you do bake with it, you can use it as a replacement for molasses in any recipe. If you would like to use it as a replacement for sugar, follow the instructions for Agave.
Maple Syrup
Maple syrup lends a subtle flavor change to your baked goods, and it’s an amazing replacement for brown sugar in just about every recipe, from oatmeal to granola. It’s also great in somewhat savory recipes, like BBQ sauce.
When replacing sugar in baked goods, use ¾ cup of pure Maple Syrup for every 1 cup of sugar, and reduce the liquid by 3 tbsp.
But make sure you read the ingredients and get pure Maple Syrup…a lot of maple syrup on the shelves right now is actually flavored with high fructose corn syrup!
Honey
Honey isn’t just a natural sweetener…it’s also a great source of antioxidants and can sooth a sore throat. It’s a great replacement for regular sugar in teas, dressings, baked goods like muffins or cakes. I’ve even known people who use it to sweeten their coffee.
To replace white sugar with honey when baking, use ¾ cup for every 1 cup and reduce your liquids by ½ cup. Also, reduce the oven by 25 degrees to keep whatever you’re baking from browning too much.
Coconut Palm Sugar
With a low glycemic index and a ton of vital minerals like magnesium and potassium, it’s no wonder coconut palm sugar is my absolute favorite replacement sugar.
It’s also the absolute easiest to use when baking, because it is a 1-for-1 substitute for refined white sugar. So if your recipe calls for ¾ cup of sugar, you replace it with ¾ cup Coconut Palm Sugar…no adjustments required.
I hope these tips help you enjoy some of the treats you love!
But keep in mind…the key is moderation. Replacing the refined sugar won’t help you be healthy if you’re polishing off a bottle of Agave every week.
June 4th, 2014 at 5:15 pm
One more nod to yesterday’s post, Michael Kupperman told Salon.com that the NY Times wouldn’t publish his #YesAllWomen comic.
They cited it as being “too sensitive”:
http://media.salon.com/2014/06/man_babies_embed_large.jpg
Gutless! And so it continues…..
—
btw, Health Info, i have heard that agave syrup is not so good for you.
/SB
June 4th, 2014 at 6:47 pm
Michelle, yesterday’s post from #13 to about #77 was so depressing. It was almost a non stop rant from showing exactly what the rape culture is all about. It would be shameful if it wasn’t so despicable. You called it perfectly Michelle. If we women want to improve our situation, we will have to do it on our own.
June 4th, 2014 at 7:11 pm
Ruth, reading those terrible things being said by men from 13-77 was very educational because they all borrowed from Zaron’s “bullet list” to make their points.
Like Mr. Lewis said men using topics from his “bullet list” to make their arguments are foster an atmosphere of rape culture.
June 4th, 2014 at 7:22 pm
Those coldblooded insensitive remarks being made by men on yesterday’s blog made me embarrassed to be a male. They couldn’t be anymore disgusting if they tried.
And they didn’t have any imagination. One would think that they would have tried to avoid saying things that mirrored one of the examples given by Mr. Lewis in his bullet points.
But no, they exaggerated the rape statistics, or demeaned the women, or refused to take rape seriously, etc.
Sadly these are the men that not only keep the rape culture alive, they embarrass all men while they are doing it.
June 4th, 2014 at 7:25 pm
Damn, some of those men need a swift kick in the ass on yesterday’s blog. When they weren’t feeling sorry for themselves they were playing cite the “race card” or in this case accuse the women of playing the “rape card.”
These are the sick assholes when have to face after a rape because they are the cops, DAs, judges and juries that deep the culture of rape women have to live in alive and well.
June 4th, 2014 at 7:29 pm
Michelle, I may have been on the fence before I read the inane ramblings from 13 – 77. Now I am firmly in the corner of women on this rape culture issue.
My God, how have you ladies held on to your sanity under these circumstances? How can men who have mothers, sister, daughters and other female acquaintances be this unfeeling towards women?
June 4th, 2014 at 7:33 pm
Could men be anymore indifferent to the fears of women? That 64 post tirade of callous remarks was just plain mean and self centered. It was all about men telling women that men’s feelings are more important than their having to live in an atmosphere of terror.
June 4th, 2014 at 7:35 pm
What can you expect from men who have only thought of themselves all their lives? One can only imagine what the women in their lives have to endure.
June 4th, 2014 at 11:21 pm
#16 you just called it out. If a man can’t just acknowledge that rape culture & violence against women is just wrong (don’t care if she’s drunk, acting like what they define as a ‘oh’ or any other excuse. It’s not about her behavior it’s about your character and behavior) just bc you don’t ‘relate’ suddenly you break out instances where men were wronged or raped (no one said it doesn’t occur though this article is about women but NO it’s all about you – again)
I didn’t spend the time writing down the several names from yesterday (why bother) I’ll just say to you collective narcissistic sociopaths – grow the hell up, so freaky tired of you Peter Pans who immediately go into child mode.
Of course, there are wrongs that all humans suffer, this dude was merely pointing out how you could freaking help reduce rape/violence against women. He’s quite a prolific (and damn funny) writer but you all immediately go into defend yourselves mode, that’s the best you can do??
I fully expected our infamous racist to throw his jerky two in but the rest of you, seriously, you all need to get a grip and rethink what it means to be a man.
Luv, Zen Lill
June 4th, 2014 at 11:30 pm
That’s a typo ‘ho’ not ‘oh’
& about today’s topic, the NSA and Facebook and all apps (‘can we access your address book?’) and if you answer no you can’t get the app, if you say yes (‘can we allow push notifications?’) and then (‘can we use your current location?’) hmmm they already are doing all of it and unless your are deviceless in this world you’re latest in the face pool. Everything that looks like its been done fr our convenience has only served to track us. Your smartphone had gps to find places (or YOU!) and all pictures, videos, other peoples pics you may not even know your ‘tagged’ in are on the interwebs for the NSA’s convenience, I’d say good bye to privacy but it’s been gone fr some time (patriot act GWB)…
-ZL
June 5th, 2014 at 5:48 am
Ditto Zen Lill. Well said on both accounts.
June 5th, 2014 at 6:28 am
This is ridiculous: Student loan debt now totals $1.2 trillion. That’s a crippling burden for students and young people who are struggling to build a future.
But today, Democrats led by Elizabeth Warren are introducing a new emergency bill that lowers rates for Americans with high-interest student loans. The entire Senate will vote on it soon, and we need your urgent help to ensure that it passes.
Overwhelming student debt keeps young people from buying homes, buying cars, starting small businesses, saving for retirement, and making purchases that strengthen our economy.
This new plan allows students to refinance their loans — just like businesses and homeowners do — to get lower rates.
June 5th, 2014 at 9:02 am
[…] Bill: Oh yeah. That’s exactly what they are saying. But like Adolfo said, “What do you expect from men who have only thought of themselves all their lives?” […]