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Comment by tyingq | Hacker News Reader

The story about Clearview finding a witness able to clear a wrongfully accused man, seems like it's intended to make us feel like it's good tech since it can help defense lawyers also. Seems to gloss over why he was able to be charged in the first place...

"Although Mr Conlyn said he was the passenger, police suspected he had been driving and he he was charged with vehicular homicide...The witness, Vince Ramirez, made a statement that he had taken Mr Conlyn out of the passenger's seat. Shortly after, the charges were dropped."

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It is undoubtedly a feel-good story. Another “facial recognition feel good story” I’ve heard was a child porn case - the police ran the perpetrator’s image to find him and arrest him… and then ran the victim’s image to find her and inform her family, so they could get her therapy and support. Yet another story is the detective who ran a fugitive from a cold case and it pulled up an obituary for the fellow, effectively closing the case on the spot - not quite “feel good”, but it does serve to illustrate that these technologies have all sorts of applications in policing beyond “take a picture of the bad guy to send him to jail”.

What to make of these stories? On the one hand, we’re only hearing these stories because these stories make them look good. On the other hand, these stories… kinda do make them look good? Giving defendants access to the evidence they need to save themselves from a miscarriage of justice, locating and protecting victims of the worst crimes imaginable - those are seriously good things! We should be careful to respect the gravity of those results in our calculus of how to treat these feel-good stories.

Ultimately, my analysis is that facial recognition isn’t “good tech” or “bad tech”, it’s just “extraordinarily powerful tech”, and thus it will necessarily inherit the moral valence of whoever’s using it, and those users’ intentions and actions.

If they give that tech to defense lawyers and the lawyers use it for good, sometimes you will get stories like “we put in a single frame of body cam footage and in a few seconds it gave us back the only person who could save our defendant” (and the facial recognition companies will be falling over themselves to tell you all about it).

If they give that tech to sports stadiums and the stadiums use it for evil, sometimes you will get stories like “we put in the headshots of every lawyer who’s suing us, and prevented one from enjoying a football game with her friends and family” (and the media will be falling all over themselves to tell you all about it).

If they give that tech to police, well, I would guess your opinion of them would end up roughly the same as your opinion of the police.

The obituary cold case example leads me to the opposite conclusion. A determined criminal can literally use another murder to close the case on their existing murder with a well crafted prosthetic.

I don't honestly understand how the Clearview thing would make any difference. The burden of proof is on the prosecutor right? So in court they would need to present proof that he was in the front seat, and if he wasn't there wouldn't be any such proof? Or has the US justice system become so dysfunctional that people actively must prove their innocence?

https://innocenceproject.org/

It is, yes. The specific mechanism is that most cases don't go to trial; accused are offered plea deals with the threat that they will receive a much, much harsher sentence if they push for a trial. This threat is often made good too: police testimony is usually enough to get a guilty verdict and police say what prosecutors want them to.

Basically if they want you they've got you. To get out you have to have a very specific alignment of resources, sympathy and luck, and the risk if it doesn't work out is massive even then.

To add to this... Rikers Island is known as "Torture Island" colloquially and is mostly people awaiting trial, many of whom end up making plea deals

Yup guantanamo north I've heard it called. Like 30 people have died in houston jail while awaiting trial in the last two years alone. It's endemic to the point of being basically intentional now.

This is what the story should have been about! Not about glorifying more surveillance.

The purpose of a system is what it does

Are you implying that someone who is lawfully a passenger in car is somehow responsible for the drivers actions?

in Germany if the driver is obviously drunk or drugged and not fit for driving you may lose the license as a passenger, especially as a sober passenger, yes. you have to take the wheel or prevent the ride. not sure about the US.

My torts professor’s head just exploded, in case you were wondering what that sound was.

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