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The Shocking Secrets of Madison Square Garden’s Surveillance Machine (www.wired.com)

submitted 5 days ago by sanitation@lemmy.today to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[-] ajmaxwell@lemmy.world 66 points 5 days ago

This should be illegal. Facial recognition software shouldn't exist.

[-] CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

Facial recognition software shouldn't exist.

I know where you're coming from, but the problem with your statement assumes getting rid of facial rec would solve the problem. There already exists multiple ways for people to be tracked that doesn't involve a camera. One of them being Bluetooth ID tracking (we all carry phones). And it's fairly better and cheaper to implement. You need to have devices in various places (like you would with a camera), but you don't even need to see a person's face, nevermind a good angle of their face (which is a constant issue with facial rec). As long as the person is within signal distance of a node, you know where they are/been.

I'm not justifying the use of facial recognition here (there ARE proper uses like organizing a digital photo album or access control at a facility). All I'm trying to point out is that awful people will find ways to use tools for awful reasons.

The issue isn't the tool, the issue is a deeper problem in society. No one should want to use a tool in this way.

This should be illegal.

Agree 100%

[+] terabyterex@lemmy.world -14 points 5 days ago

i hate it but having cameras in your privately owned building is legal.

[-] Marshezezz@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 4 days ago

They never said it wasn’t, they said it should be

[-] mienshao@lemmy.world 45 points 5 days ago

Facial recognition software =X= cameras. Cameras are fine; software recording and tracking faces and uploading that biometric data to god knows where is wayyyyy different.

Also, MSG is different from a “privately owned buildings” like a house. This is a venue that’s open to/for the public.

As OP said, this shit should be illegal.

[-] stringere@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 days ago

=X= What?

!= There we go.

[-] Dearth@lemmy.world 0 points 3 days ago

A house is personal property. MSG is private property, like a mall or a Costco. Public property is the sidewalk outside MSG or the subway platform under it

[+] CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world -6 points 5 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

uploading that biometric data to god knows where

In the context of facial recognition, "biometric data" is just a picture of your face. If you've ever uploaded a photo of yourself to any website/service, then you've already lost that fight.

Edit: to everyone downvoting, explain why you think you know better than someone who worked in that industry and developed computer vision and facial recognition software for 10 years.

Edit 2: I think people are misunderstanding what I said. I'm not saying your photo "tracks where you are", but rather if your face exists anywhere on the internet (with associated info about who you are) then that's all anyone needs to build a facial recognition profile on you.

They just need to scrape various websites for the info and put it into a database. This is exactly what Clearview AI did. They scrapped Facebook and other publicly accessible websites and built a giant database that they then used to give police and other orgs access to via their software.

So my point was "think twice before you upload a photo with your face to any website or service"

[-] WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 days ago

that's false. if I upload a photo, that won't make it known where will I be at any later point in time. it also assumes that we have uploaded pictures of ours to the internet.

[-] CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world -2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

It's not false. I previously worked for a facial recognition company. Every single facial recognition system uses a photo (or series of photos) to extract the mathematical representation of a face. But literally every single system uses a different algorithm. Once they make the extraction, that data is 100% useless to anyone other than that vendor/system.

Ultimately it doesn't matter, because the source photo is what's more valuable, since that can be used by any system to generate a face model of an individual and it can be read/seen/interpreted by people also.

it also assumes that we have uploaded pictures of ours to the internet.

Hence why I said "If you've ever uploaded a photo of yourself".

that won't make it known where will I be at any later point in time.

I'm sorry, what??

[-] WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

it is false. it is not uploading a photo of yourself that makes this a bad thing. its not only bad because it recognized be on a facebook photo. the major part that makes it bad that these systems are recording, and uploading data god knows where, no matter the format, with total unaccountability to the average person.

that won't make it known where will I be at any later point in time.

I'm sorry, what??

by uploading a photo, nobody will know what will happen to me in my life in the future. these camera systems are the things that do that.

[-] CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world 1 points 23 hours ago

it is false. it is not uploading a photo of yourself that makes this a bad thing.

You still don't seem to understand. I'll try to explain it more simply:

If you've uploaded a photo of yourself with PII data (eg. your name), then that information can be scraped and used by ethically void companies (most of them) to build a database with your information on it. All without your knowledge or consent.

the major part that makes it bad that these systems are recording, and uploading data

Irrelevant to the point I was making, and it doesn't falsify or contradict anything I've said.

[-] WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 1 points 20 hours ago

If you've uploaded a photo of yourself with PII data (eg. your name), then that information can be scraped and used by ethically void companies (most of them) to build a database with your information on it. All without your knowledge or consent.

that's not what I debate, sorry. if you look at it that way, we all might have lost that battle, without exceptions, because of gov ID photos.

my point is that the battle is not lost by facial recognition companies getting your photo, but when your area uses cameras related to a facial recognition company, and your community cannot get rid of them.

[-] BrickEater@lemmy.world 0 points 4 days ago

We don't know better, we just hate you because YOU helped build this problem.

[-] CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world -1 points 3 days ago

You have no idea what I did.

The company I worked for built firearms detection for facilities that prohibited weapons, and facial recognition for access control systems. We even built a version of our facial rec system for a school that had a problem with an alarmingly high amount of sex offenders living in the immediate area. So that system was built explicitly to keep sex offenders away from the school.

Our system was literally built with security and privacy in mind. We insisted on air gapped networks for the architecture. We were asked by several clients if we could make the system accessible via "the cloud" and we said no. We were asked if we could build a function to catalogue all faces seen to build up a database and provide insights if someone at a later point caused an issue and the historical data could be reviewed to see what they did in the past. We said no.

The company doesn't exist anymore (covid killed us, we were a very small company and not US American), and our IP stayed with us. I also know for a fact that no one else has implemented some of the cutting edge methodology we used.

So no. I didn't help build "this problem", because nothing I've built is being used anymore. And if anything, we helped hold the tide on some of the stuff used today. If we had a different ethical approach we probably could have gone farther and faster with the company, but we didn't.

And as a side point: you basically admitted that you used the downvote button as an irrational emotional outlet instead of actually reading what I said as valuable insight. I pointed out that a photo of your face literally counts as "biometric data", and that it's something people should be more guarded about. The mathematical model generated from your face is frankly irrelevant. It's worthless outside of the system that generated it, and actually worthless without the photo of the person. Because without the photo, there's no way to validate the detection.

So good job with your baseless hate. We certainly don't have enough of that going around.

[-] BrickEater@lemmy.world -1 points 3 days ago

Sounds like a Lotta copium to me lol

[-] CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

None at all. I know what we did and how we went about it. And I know we put a lot of effort into making things as privacy respecting as possible.

The truth is I doubt we would have been able to survive the landscape because there are many other companies that have zero qualms about building un-ethical software.

The funny thing is that in one of our deployments there was one local who kept making a massive fuss about our stuff, and quite literally making up lies about what we were doing and how our system worked. Now that we're gone from that scene, other companies have stepped in who gladly do all the stuff we refused to do.

And I gave a very high level description. There's a LOT of stuff I won't (and can't) share details of. All I will say is that there was a military contractor that was very impressed by our stuff and wanted to drop a lot of money on us (this was after covid started and our sales opportunities died due to travel restrictions). After we asked questions about the intended use, we said "no thanks" and walked away from the deal. We did that because it was clear to us that our software would absolutely be used in one way or another in the process to hurt people.

So like I said, not a drop of copium.

[-] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 18 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Yeah, I was tempted to make a video about this, but James Dolan is irrationally petty, even with people who don't matter like me. I don't need a billionaire having their assistant ruin my life.

[-] qwestjest78@lemmy.ca 11 points 5 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

See, how is anyone supposed to want to go to a sports game or concert anymore? It wasn't bad enough that the prices are so inflated, now they stalk you like big brother the second you approach the entrance to the building.

[-] luciferofastora@feddit.org 8 points 5 days ago

According to that lawsuit and our sources, Dolan’s head of corporate security takes such an expansive view of his mission that his employees will functionally cosplay as cops—patrolling the neighborhood, snooping on protesters if they happen to be in the area. You don't have to enter a Dolan venue to be under his watch.

Sooooo basically ICE painted corporate? Fuck MSG security and every cunt that voluntarily works for them and tells themselves this is fine.

[-] TIEPilot@lemmy.world 10 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

This guy is a monster, he needs mental help...

EDIT:

The more I read the more I doubt the knicks won, he has dirt on everyone...

this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2026

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