AI is unmasking ICE officers. Can Washington do anything about it?
A new twist in the debate over surveillance tech raises tough questions for policymakers.
An activist has started using artificial intelligence to identify Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents beneath their masks — a use of the technology sparking new political concerns over AI-powered surveillance.
Dominick Skinner, a Netherlands-based immigration activist, estimates he and a group of volunteers have publicly identified at least 20 ICE officials recorded wearing masks during arrests. He told POLITICO his experts are “able to reveal a face using AI, if they have 35 percent or more of the face visible.”
The AI-powered project adds a new twist to the debates over both ICE masking and government surveillance tools, as immigration enforcement becomes more widespread and aggressive.
ICE says its agents need to wear masks to prevent being unfairly harassed for doing their jobs.
We’ve done something similar, @Goofyhoofy …..not with ICE thugs but with an intruder in my daughter’s hospital (a little bit closer to home) Although wearing a mask, he was manifestly someone who knew his way around the joint and was trying to be “seen” on security cameras…..but not necessarily identified. He’s been identified….but doesn’t know it yet. Ongoing fallout from this debacle
Coming up to the anniversary of my first inkling of how generative AI can be misused and not spotted by folk you’d expect to fact-check. Added plenty of insight to my critical thinking armamentarium since. Too late for our little family to escape the fallout, though.
Obviously I don’t want you to share too much, but are you going to be able to use AI generated ID to aid in prosecuting this person ? Just wonder how that will stand up in our legal system. GoofyHoofy posted this on Shrewd, so maybe Albaby will chime in on it, he definitely knows more about the law than any poster I’ve read on either site.
Thanks for the response and thoughts, @UpNorthJoe. I absolutely don’t mind sharing….it’s a cautionary tale in many ways and a lesson in how spit can come out of left field and strike anyone down. Especially when the lawyers and other hangers-on are involved and dipping their collective crusts in the gravy boat.
In answer to your actual question, I seriously doubt this would hold in a court of law….I say that with the experience of what’s been ignored, successfully challenged and dismissed so far. That’s not actually the intent.
The Lump of Foul Deformity (I go for Shakespeare as well as Coleridge with my insults) has been waging a war of attrition against my daughter since before the divorce. Things that on the face of it might make a person look a bit crazy hysterical to make a fuss (too numerous to mention….and a deliberate ploy, it seems) This is one of the many and we’re keeping it on the back burner for future use. I say “we”….but I really mean me as, full disclosure, I’m now such a mean Mama Bear that I make the one last November seem like a cuddly little teddy.
This last week, my daughter finally got the protection order reinstated (judge did not renew it at final hearing…..presumably that GenAI treatise of the Plague Sore’s was not erased from the her radar screen)….served by the sheriff, no less.
We have two trials on the horizon….maybe. Summary judgement has found in my daughter’s favour (for wire-tapping, attempted extortion, theft….can’t remember all) but there is a mediation hearing coming up. On 9/11!
The real vulnerability is my granddaughter who’s been caught in this mess of legal pettyfogging with basically still a 50:50 split in custody. Her utility as a tool to beat my daughter with is diminishing so we’re stepping cautiously.
Apologies for hijacking your thread @Goofyhoofy ….. but it came at just the point when I’m reminded of the insidious nature of AI. In all my online meanderings (or “research”, if you will) and discovery of all the ways it’s bamboozled whole professions, I still haven’t stumbled across the right search words to throw up any examples of the Canker Blossom’s successful maleficence WRT weaseling out of the domestic violence evaluation.
Much like fingerprints, you expect AI identification to be accepted in court once reliability is established. Until then it’s likely to be challenged repeatedly.
The difficulties of facial recognition software are well known. Unable to reliably identify minorities. But the problem seems to be the database used for training. You would think prison photos of convicts would be an obvious database but it was apparently overlooked.
Doppelgangers are everywhere. I know a few of mine wandering other parts of the Earth.
AI identification will never be reliable enough to convict someone of a crime, without other corroborating, compelling evidence. Heck, even compelling photo or video evidence is rarely enough to reach the burden of proof.
That said, that’s the way the law used to work. We’re living in different times now.
I fancy it’s likely to be used in advance of it’s reliability rather than anything else. Courts don’t seem to be having much success grappling intrusive use of AI…..
I posted this shortly after my thread upstream in a different context but still it illustrates the need for basic fact checking.
Just as well that I practise what I preach. I was in Safeways yesterday and spied a bloke who I thought was a dead ringer for the one we’re all pegging as the intruder in daughter’s hospital (probably because the incident was on my mind again) Fortunately, I did double check. It wasn’t him. I was going to walk up to him and greet him with a cheery, “How-do, Pete? I barely recognized you without the mask!”.
Use of facial recognition to identify a list of possible perps seems reasonable to me. But then you follow w additional investigation. Was person in the area? Otherwise connected w the crime? Will that get you a search warrant?
AI does not serve alone in court but contributes to the process.
