Thread

500k facial scans at UK stations yield no arrests, 1 false positive

518 points · 305 comments · ilamont

jwally · 1790684914 · focus · HN ↗
I was thinking about this with flock cameras the other day...what's our actual ROI? Was the world horrible before and these initiatives are going to close a monster crime gap or is this just a giant fishing expedition ... just because?
1. pj_mukh · 1790688931 · focus · HN ↗
  Can we cut to the bone a little bit? The recent crime panics are not about a partner assaulting their live-in partner or a random home burglary. There is no real "ROI" to be had.
  It's purely about the unease of living in chaotic cities, the random stabbings, the shoplifting, the visible homelessness etc. Flock is the stopgap here.
  Partly the "feeling" of chaos is just that, a feeling, driven significantly by algorithmic feeds feeding us every random crime from around the country 24/7. Husband murders wife in a murderous rage? No one hear's about it. Mentally ill man murders a woman on the train in a Tier 2 city, immediate nationwide breaking news.
  The other part though is a real dissolution in how we take care of our mentally ill. Complex topic [1].
  I think complaining about Flock is complaining about the symptom. Today we dogpile on Flock to get it cancelled, tomorrow the public will reach for something else. We have to fix the underlying disease, which is a combination of the two factors above.
  [1]: <a href="https://time.com/6265241/america-care-of-mentally-ill-people/" rel="nofollow">https://time.com/6265241/america-care-of-mentally-ill-people...
  1. thinkingtoilet · 1790690611 · focus · HN ↗
    Let us also acknowledged that we're living in the safest time in history and modern American cities are extremely safe, despite the unhinged propaganda from the right.
    monideas · 1790690784 · focus · HN ↗
    I don’t think public parks in the 1950s in America were filled with used heroin needles and homeless people strung out or defecating.
    You can correct me if I’m wrong though.
    [deleted] · 1790690852 · focus · HN ↗
    [deleted]
    dgellow · 1790691250 · focus · HN ↗
    From my understanding cities like NYC were actually in a really bad shape in 1950s and after compared to now, until around the 90s
    Edit: actually, from what I find in the 1950s there was even ongoing heroin epidemics, in addition to gang warfare, and of course racial inequality
    nobody9999 · 1790701945 · focus · HN ↗
    >From my understanding cities like NYC were actually in a really bad shape in 1950s and after compared to now, until around the 90s
    >Edit: actually, from what I find in the 1950s there was even ongoing heroin epidemics, in addition to gang warfare, and of course racial inequality
    I can confirm the gang warfare (at least in the 1970s and early 1980s) -- there were street gangs every few blocks and the police were (mostly) just considered the biggest and best armed gang -- and for good reason.
    I didn't know Verdi Park[0] was called "Verdi Park" until the late 1990s. It was (but not any more) shaped like a triangle which is why I (incorrectly) thought it was actually named "Needle Park" But that was actually because of the heroin.
    But all that's changed and has been for more than 20 years. NYC is the safest it's ever been.
    [0] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verdi_Square" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verdi_Square
    thinkingtoilet · 1790691855 · focus · HN ↗
    Good news! They aren't filled with used heroin needles today as well!
    piltdownman · 1790696424 · focus · HN ↗
    There definitely was recorded incidence of this - Washington Square Park for example - but the main reason for the difference today was due to vagrancy and loitering laws, as well as 1930s Dust Bowl governance, that no longer exist for human-rights reasons.
    Very easy to keep the parks 'beautiful' when you could just shift anyone undesirable to a prison, asylum, or skid row.
    N.B. Littering also wasn't seen as a social failing in 50s America, so there's a bit of a juxtaposition there versus the contemporary reality.
    [deleted] · 1790696734 · focus · HN ↗
    [deleted]
    datsci_est_2015 · 1790705931 · focus · HN ↗
    Nope, but alcohol consumption was a lot higher, as well as domestic violence. And race-based violence. And opiate production hadn’t industrialized yet.
    Given the public policy of the 50s, if the Sacklers had been around, I would imagine a much higher death toll and much more damage to the public welfare than the opiate epidemic of the 2000s.
    Probably would’ve put the Opium Wars to shame.

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