Some people here are saying that this is bad because the victim is asking 1bn, that it's a publicity stunt.<p>Well, it better be a publicity stunt! You can't change those stupid behaviors of facial recognition without such bad publicity. I hope they make as much publicity as possible, and maybe some money (but he won't get 1bn, that's not the point).
I know this view is not going to go down well with the HN crowd, but consider this: The name used by the actual thief was used to track down Bah and arrest him. The normal course from there would be a long haul process to prove he was innocent. But he was <i>exonerated</i> by the presence of facial recognition which showed that the person in the store was not Bah. The facial recognition here seems to have done neither more nor less than a regular CCTV camera in a store. If anything the presence of the cameras helped free him!
He should ask for a billion dollars - the article says that Apple’s mistake resulted in his arrest, and even though it was a mistake and he was not convicted, I don’t think that arrest is ever going to be removed. He will forever be someone who was arrested and it will show up if someone does a background check. The police might pull him over for a minor traffic violation, the computer will pull up that the occupant has been arrested for theft in the past, suddenly its a whole different conversation because the cop is looking for an easy arrest.
What's bothering me the most is that he claim facial recognition is involved while no evidence at all is provided in the body of the article.<p>Look like a plain old identity theft with the ID card he lost... As long as they recon his innocence after "humanely comparing" his face in a police station with video footage what would actually worth 1 Bn$ ???<p>A few year ago a coworker of mine was often contacted by police because his car plate was used by a matching stolen car... It was embarrassing but he didn't sue the car-maker as far as I know...
It's disappointing to see that the 1 billion figure is what really grinds people's gears in here. That's the thing you should be the least concerned about.<p>edit: typo
Let me echo onion2k's point:<p>That kid can no longer truthfully answer "no" to "Have you ever been arrested?". This alone can change his life completely.
I get some strange kill decision[1] vibes here.<p>So they fed a machine with flawed data, got a result and the police acted on that without reviewing the "evidence" before hand?<p>[1] <a href="http://daniel-suarez.com/killdecisionsynopsis.html" rel="nofollow">http://daniel-suarez.com/killdecisionsynopsis.html</a>
Possibly a better article, including a reference to the actual filing: <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-22/apple-face-recognition-blamed-by-new-york-teen-for-false-arrest" rel="nofollow">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-22/apple-fac...</a>
So thief walks in the store with the stolen ID. If facial recognition is working correctly, then this identity theft should have been recognized immediately, unless the actual guy has never been in an Apple store.<p>Thief steals a bunch of things, and the software ties the thiefs face to the stolen ID. Without facial recognition, they still would have tied the ID to the theft.<p>Apple sends the police the name and address on the ID, as well as maybe an image of the thief. The police arrest the man matching the ID without reviewing the footage.<p>This seems like the polices fault for not following through with a proper investigation. If anything, the footage from Apple saved this teenager. He still has an arrest on record, and as others mentioned that could ruin his life. But he needs to take that up with the police, not Apple.<p>The only way I see this involving facial recognition is if the thief came in to case the place, used the stolen ID, then came back later without showing the ID and stole a bunch of things. Or if they have software that flags thiefs, even when employees dont see it.<p>Now all that being said, there are questions to be raised about the surveilence brought by Apple. Do they notify their customers that they are being recorded? How long do they store this data? Are they analyzing your behavior (frequency of visits, suspicious activity, where you walk in the store, etc)? Is their facial recognition biased/inaccurate?<p>Apple prides themselves on being privacy focused, but they are clearly infringing on their customers.
Better article:<p><a href="https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2019/04/23/524414.htm" rel="nofollow">https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2019/04/23/52...</a><p>My conclusion: The face-recognition functioned completely correctly - it associated multiple acts by the same individual - but Apple incorrectly used a non-photo ID as identification of that individual, and thus incorrectly identified that individual as Bah.<p>Sequence of events summary:<p>Thief used Bah's stolen, non-photo ID.<p>This led to Bah being arraigned for theft.<p>Apple then identified video of the thief in multiple thefts at other stores (a detective asserted the matching was done by face-recognition).<p>This led to Bah being arrested.<p>Police then realized that Bah did not resemble thief, he was released, and various charges have been dropped.
The most chilling thing about this is that any stores even have facial-recognition systems in place.<p>If I'm going to walk into any physical store with that technology inside, I want to know that BEFORE walking in.
Cameras can be used ethically in public and semi-public areas. While I don't know if we have official/specific guidelines in the US, I'm sure with a little effort we could create some that would allow for their very effective use, and not overreach, violating personal rights or leading to a police state.<p>In this case, it seems a mix up occurred and a little police work easily led to clearing the person's name of the charge. Looks like the system worked (but it was very inconvenient for the accused). The camera is just a single piece of evidence, and not the entire case. So long as courts realize this, it should actually help deter crime AND make prosecution more correct in catching the correct perpetrator. There is a long history of just finding someone to blame. I hope cameras make catching the correct person easier, to avoid this type of policing failures.
>the lawsuit claims Apple programmed its stores' face recognition system to associate the real thief's face with Bah's details. In a statement to Engadget, an Apple spokesperson said the company does not use facial recognition in its stores.<p>So anyone know how likely it is if that thing happened or not?
Facial recognition systems are everywhere, even in Poland small shops(FreshMarket, etc.) have it built into cash registers.<p>Is this something that concerns me? Absolutely not and I can even say I don't give a fuck. Most of the government institutions already have your photo, signature, and many more from ID/Passport or any other government documents you made. So why you should be afraid of companies who does it too? I know, I know, privacy, ads, tracking and stuff. :)<p>But is this still fight for privacy? I see many startups us this rhetoric to acquire clients. But it turns into a terrible joke like it was with usability 15 years ago. Where companies offered services that were not needed to collect even more money.
>the lawsuit states Apple programmed its stores' face recognition system to associate the real thief's face with Bah's details.<p>What moron thought that was a good idea?
I don't understand what role the facial recognition played in his arrest. The article says the actual thief used his name and other identifying info - it makes no claim about how the facial recognition software was utilized to make the arrest...
> the lawsuit argues that Apple's "use of facial recognition software in its stores to track individuals suspected of theft is the type of Orwellian surveillance that consumers fear, particularly as it can be assumed that the majority of consumers are not aware that their faces are secretly being analyzed."<p>This, coupled with the $1 billion being asked, makes this seem like a publicity stunt :/
The $billion figure is clearly designed to draw attention to this case. Would it have made it onto HN if he'd been suing for $1000?<p>And, rightly so, in my opinion. This is the tip of a totalitarian iceberg - would any of us be content with being declared criminal by a computer?