Google wins lawsuit, can continue to use facial recognition tech on users without consent

[JacksinPA]

https://www.rt.com/usa/447902-google-facial-recognition-lawsuit/

A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit that alleged Google’s nonconsensual use of facial recognition technology violated users’ privacy rights, allowing the tech giant to continue to scan and store their biometric data.

The lawsuit, filed in 2016, alleged that Google violated Illinois state law by collecting biometric data - as biologically unique to users as fingerprints - without their consent. The data was harvested from their pictures stored on Google Photos.
======================
The law suit was based on the fact that unauthorized scanning of their faces was a violation of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, which completely outlaws the gathering of biometric information without consent.

The judge dismissed the suit because the complainants had not suffered 'concrete harm.' IOW, you have to prove that you suffered material damage in order for your suit to prevail.

This facial recognition software combined with the steadily encroaching use of CCTV surveillance is bringing us closer to the police state predicted in 1984, Brave New World & THX1148.

 

[Kal'Stang]

Well that's BS...

 

[Lovebug]

Well that's BS...

Why? You post your pic it's fair game. What am I missing?

 

[JacksinPA]

Well that's BS...

Give the state the tools & they will use them. Unfortunately in this case it's your privacy being threatened, your right to be anonymous in a crowd instead of being scanned, IDed, crosschecked, logged, shown ads in a store or on a street & filed.

Don't you value your privacy, Kal?

 

[JacksinPA]

Why? You post your pic it's fair game. What am I missing?

They use this technology in cities by the police, in stores & subway stations by marketers to know your personal preferences & show you targeted ads. Your privacy becomes a data packet that will always follow you. I personally value my privacy. Lose that to the state & they can control you, follow you. You should feel violated, as those people in IL did.

 

[Hawkeye10]

https://www.rt.com/usa/447902-google-facial-recognition-lawsuit/

A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit that alleged Google’s nonconsensual use of facial recognition technology violated users’ privacy rights, allowing the tech giant to continue to scan and store their biometric data.

The lawsuit, filed in 2016, alleged that Google violated Illinois state law by collecting biometric data - as biologically unique to users as fingerprints - without their consent. The data was harvested from their pictures stored on Google Photos.
======================
The law suit was based on the fact that unauthorized scanning of their faces was a violation of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, which completely outlaws the gathering of biometric information without consent.

The judge dismissed the suit because the complainants had not suffered 'concrete harm.' IOW, you have to prove that you suffered material damage in order for your suit to prevail.

This facial recognition software combined with the steadily encroaching use of CCTV surveillance is bringing us closer to the police state predicted in 1984, Brave New World & THX1148.

This is why people dont trust the courts to protect their freedom anymore....

The smart ones ....

 

[Felis Leo]

They use this technology in cities by the police, in stores & subway stations by marketers to know your personal preferences & show you targeted ads. Your privacy becomes a data packet that will always follow you. I personally value my privacy. Lose that to the state & they can control you, follow you. You should feel violated, as those people in IL did.

I do agree with you in principle, JacksinPA. But that is the danger when you use these so called "free" services, like the Google search engine, Gmail, and its various applications. Alphabet Inc. has nearly 100,000 employees working for it, no one has ever employed that many people developing software by giving away their products for free without some cost attached. :shrug:

 

[Lovebug]

They use this technology in cities by the police, in stores & subway stations by marketers to know your personal preferences & show you targeted ads. Your privacy becomes a data packet that will always follow you. I personally value my privacy. Lose that to the state & they can control you, follow you. You should feel violated, as those people in IL did.

Observation is a necessary tool, using it for marketing purposes not so much.

 

[HonestJoe]

The judge dismissed the suit because the complainants had not suffered 'concrete harm.' IOW, you have to prove that you suffered material damage in order for your suit to prevail.

That is the usual standard for civil suits. Are you arguing for that limitation to be removed entirely or simply ignored in this specific case?

This facial recognition software combined with the steadily encroaching use of CCTV surveillance is bringing us closer to the police state predicted in 1984, Brave New World & THX1148.

There are already real police states in the world so such technology is clearly not a requirement. Technological developments also provides tools that make police states harder to maintain too.
Regardless, even if this case had been won, it wouldn’t have changed anything beyond moving a bit of money around (mostly towards a different set of lawyers). You’re not going to stop the technology existing and being developed and trying to supress it in this kind of way could even be counter-productive, forcing the development further in to the shadows and this more open to misuse and abuse.

 

[Peter King]

Why? You post your pic it's fair game. What am I missing?

hence me not using my picture on Facebook, twitter or on any other website.

 

[Lord Tammerlain]

They use this technology in cities by the police, in stores & subway stations by marketers to know your personal preferences & show you targeted ads. Your privacy becomes a data packet that will always follow you. I personally value my privacy. Lose that to the state & they can control you, follow you. You should feel violated, as those people in IL did.

The use of facial recognition systems in public settings is not something that will be stopped. A person will only be able to control their own personal devices and spaces.

There are items that are for sale that help prevent the tracking of individuals in public spaces through CCTV (baseball caps with IR emitters)


As for the lawsuit, no monetary damage, means no monetary punishment

 

[Gaius46]

https://www.rt.com/usa/447902-google-facial-recognition-lawsuit/

A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit that alleged Google’s nonconsensual use of facial recognition technology violated users’ privacy rights, allowing the tech giant to continue to scan and store their biometric data.

The lawsuit, filed in 2016, alleged that Google violated Illinois state law by collecting biometric data - as biologically unique to users as fingerprints - without their consent. The data was harvested from their pictures stored on Google Photos.
======================
The law suit was based on the fact that unauthorized scanning of their faces was a violation of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, which completely outlaws the gathering of biometric information without consent.

The judge dismissed the suit because the complainants had not suffered 'concrete harm.' IOW, you have to prove that you suffered material damage in order for your suit to prevail.

This facial recognition software combined with the steadily encroaching use of CCTV surveillance is bringing us closer to the police state predicted in 1984, Brave New World & THX1148.

Why was a violation of Illinois state law brought up in Federal court ?? Did Illinois courts reach the same conclusion?

 

[JacksinPA]

The use of facial recognition systems in public settings is not something that will be stopped. A person will only be able to control their own personal devices and spaces.

There are items that are for sale that help prevent the tracking of individuals in public spaces through CCTV (baseball caps with IR emitters)

The ultimate goal is something like Phil Dick's scramble suit from his novel A Scanner Darkly. The product of a mind that knew too many LSD trips.

Scramble Suit
A superthin membrane upon which are projected the characteristics of a million different people, it confers instant anonymity.

In the novel, narcotics officers wear these suits to disguise their appearance.


"Now you will notice," the Lions Club host said, "that you can barely see this individual... because he is wearing what is called a scramble suit...
"Let's hear it for the vague blur!" the host said loudly..."

The scramble suit was an invention of the Bell laboratories, conjured up by accident by an employee named S. A. Powers... Basically, his design consisted of a multifaceted quartz lens hooked up to a million and a half physiognomic fraction-representations of various people: men and women, children, with every variant encoded and then projected outward in all directions equally onto a superthin shroudlike membrane large enough to fit around an average human.

As the computer looped through its banks, it projected every conceivable eye color, hair color, shape and type of nose, formation of teeth, configuration of facial bone structure - the entire shroudlike membrane took on whatever physical characteristics were projected at any nanosecond, then switched to the next...

In any case, the wearer of a scramble suit was Everyman and in every combination (up to combinations of a million and a half sub-bits) during the course of each hour. Hence, any description of him - or her - was meaningless.