alt Hacker News> Quickly they showed me a video of my entire time with all my movements at the airport so they could pinpoint the employee.
This is just as interesting as it is creepy, but that's the world we live and this is hacker news. So, how quickly was was quickly. You made your report, they get the proper people involved, and then they show you the video. How much time passed before you were viewing the video?
For someone that plays with quickly assembling an edited video from a library of video content using a database full of cuepoints, this is a very interesting problem to solve. What did the final video look like? Was it an assembled video with cuts like in a spy movie with the best angles selected in sequence? Was it each of the cameras in a multi-cam like view just starting from the time they ID'd the flight you arrived on? Did they draw the boxes around you to show the system "knew" you?
I'm really curious how dystopian we actually are with the facial recognition systems like this.
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This tech isn't new. My company uses Axis cameras and Axis has some pretty advanced video analytics software https://www.axis.com/en-us/products/analytics
It records the license plates of all cars entering and leaving the parking lots. You can associate names to faces which we do for all employees and the system automatically records when people enter and leave buildings. You can even just tell it to find all people with a blue shirt in a particular camera in a time window. It can automatically detect people shouting.
Those sorts of systems run in realtime. They neither know (or care) who you are. They work by identifying people and pulling out appearance characteristics (like blue coat/red hair/beard/etc) and hashing them in a database. After that, it's straightforward to track similar looking people via connected cameras, with a bit of human assistance.
Here's a marketing video for a multi-camera tracking system which does just that.[1]
> I'm really curious how dystopian we actually are
No idea how widespread it is, but in Singapore airport the system is tightly integrated. You are "tagged" when you check in, and "tagged out" as you board, with your appearance associated with your intended flight details. If you miss your flight or otherwise spend too much time in the secure zone, you are highlighted in the system and will eventually be approached. Arriving passengers are also given a time limit to take their next action, be it clear immigration or enter transit, and lingering will also trigger a response.
All in the name of safety and security but I can't help but feel a measure of discomfort with it all.