Olives @olives@qoto.org

Apparently, the Fifth Circuit has ruled that Texas' book ban law is likely unconstitutional.

https://www.wired.com/story/parabon-nanolabs-dna-face-models-police-facial-recognition/

"Leaked records reveal what appears to be the first known instance of a police department attempting to use facial recognition on a face generated from crime-scene DNA. It likely won’t be the last."

"Parabon’s methods have not been peer-reviewed, and scientists are skeptical about how feasible predicting face shape even is."

"“Daisy chaining unreliable or imprecise black-box tools together is simply going to produce unreliable results,” she says."

"In a controversial 2017 decision, the department published the predicted face in an attempt to solicit tips from the public. Then, in 2020, one of the detectives did something civil liberties experts say is even more problematic—and a violation of Parabon NanoLabs’ terms of service: He asked to have the rendering run through facial recognition software."

"For facial recognition experts and privacy advocates, the East Bay detective’s request, while dystopian, was also entirely predictable. It emphasizes the ways that, without oversight, law enforcement is able to mix and match technologies in unintended ways, using untested algorithms to single out suspects based on unknowable criteria."

"“It’s really just junk science to consider something like this,” Jennifer Lynch, general counsel at civil liberties nonprofit the Electronic Frontier Foundation, tells WIRED. Running facial recognition with unreliable inputs, like an algorithmically generated face, is more likely to misidentify a suspect than provide law enforcement with a useful lead, she argues. “There’s no real evidence that Parabon can accurately produce a face in the first place,” Lynch says. “It’s very dangerous, because it puts people at risk of being a suspect for a crime they didn’t commit.”"

#privacy #FaceRecognition

Oh, cool, an interesting article, I will read it after... Unchecking all these pre-checked "legitimate interest" boxes sending my data to several hundred trackers. #privacy

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/01/eff-and-more-100-ngos-set-non-negotiable-redlines-ahead-un-cybercrime-treaty

"EFF has joined forces with 110 NGOs today in a joint statement delivered to the United Nations Ad Hoc Committee, clearly outlining civil society non-negotiable redlines for the proposed UN Cybercrime Treaty, and asserting that states should reject the proposed treaty if these essential changes are not implemented.

The last draft published on November 6, 2023 does not adequately ensure adherence to human rights law and standards. Initially focused on cybercrime, the proposed Treaty has alarmingly evolved into an expansive surveillance tool."

"Historically, cybercrime legislation has been exploited to target journalists and security researchers, suppress dissent and whistleblowers, endanger human rights defenders, limit free expression, and justify unnecessary and disproportionate state surveillance measures. We are concerned that the proposed Treaty, as it stands now, will exacerbate these problems."

#Cybercrime #privacy #HumanRights

https://reason.com/2024/01/24/man-sues-sunglass-hut-after-faulty-ai-facial-recognition-tech-led-to-wrongful-arrest/

"Harvey Murphy was arrested in October 2022 for the armed burglary of a Huston-area Sunglass Hut store after a facial recognition device identified him as the burglar. The only problem? Murphy was in Sacramento, California at the time of the crime—thousands of miles away.

Making matters worse, Murphy, now 61, says he was brutally sexually assaulted in jail just hours before he was set to be released after the charges against him were dropped. In a lawsuit filed last week, Murphy claims that his arrest was the result of gross negligence from the facial recognition company—and he demands $10 million in damages to compensate for his wrongful imprisonment."

#CriminalJustice #FaceRecognition #privacy

https://reason.com/2024/01/23/appeals-court-fbis-safe-deposit-box-seizures-violated-fourth-amendment/

"The FBI violated the Fourth Amendment when its agents rifled through the contents of more than 700 safe-deposit boxes in the aftermath of a March 2021 raid, a panel of federal appeals court judges ruled unanimously on Tuesday.

In doing so, the judges at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed what innocent victims of the raid and their attorneys have been arguing for years: that the FBI overstepped the bounds of its warrant issued in the case and failed to follow proper protocol when federal agents cracked open safe-deposit boxes, ran the contents past drug-sniffing dogs, and tried to seize some of the money and other valuables found in the boxes."

#privacy

https://reclaimthenet.org/harvey-eugene-murphy-jr-wrongful-arrest-facial-recognition-technology

"Harvey Eugene Murphy Jr, a 61-year-old man, is launching a legal battle against Macy’s and EssilorLuxottica, Sunglass Hut’s parent company, alleging a misidentification by facial recognition technology led to his unlawful arrest. Murphy’s lawsuit asserts that owing to a flawed criminal identification by a low-quality camera image, he spent days unjustly incarcerated where he underwent horrific physical and sexual violence.

In January 2022, a robbery at a Houston-based Sunglass Hut led to the theft of merchandise worth thousands. However, Murphy’s legal counsel insists that Murphy was living in California, not Texas, during that time frame."

#FaceRecognition #privacy #CriminalJustice

https://reclaimthenet.org/court-rules-trudeau-freezing-civil-liberties-protesters-bank-accounts-violated-canadas-charter

"Presiding over the case, Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley found that whereas these Freedom Convoy protests generated harm, they did not elevate to a threat against national security as per the legal definition.

Proclaiming the Emergencies Act in such a scenario, according to Mosley, lacked the attributes of sound decision-making, including justification, transparency, and intelligibility. Tracing the legal and factual constraints that must inform such a resolve illuminated this lack for Mosley.

“I have concluded that the decision to issue the Proclamation [of the Emergencies Act’ does not bear the hallmarks of reasonableness – justification, transparency and intelligibility – and was not justified,” Mosley wrote.

Civil liberty groups, including the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) and the Canadian Constitutional Foundation (CCF), had challenged this historic precedent. They contended that the Liberal government stretched its power too far while dealing with the Freedom Convoy blockades in Ontario and Alberta in February 2022. The court’s verdict aligned with their argument."

As a reminder to U.S. lawmakers, the EARN IT Act (or similar anti end-to-end encryption measures) are still as bad and unconstitutional as the last time these came up.

These mainly punish innocent people (i.e. everyone else). #privacy