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Re: [projectvrm] Facial recognition's 'dirty little secret': Millions of online photos scraped without consent


Chronological Thread 
  • From: Adrian Gropper < >
  • To: Guy Higgins < >
  • Cc: Benjamin Goering < >, MXS Insights < >, Guy Jarvis < >, "Dr. Augustine Fou" < >, ProjectVRM list < >
  • Subject: Re: [projectvrm] Facial recognition's 'dirty little secret': Millions of online photos scraped without consent
  • Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2019 20:14:29 -0400
Guy,

We have over a century of experience with data aggregated for public health use and to help medical progress. I know of no one that argues against it. In the past, those aggregates in were more-or-less in the public domain and might be used the same way we treat law enforcement aggregates through a public and somewhat political process. The aggregation of personal data at an individual level, like your history of EKGs, is not an issue since I already stipulated that self-aggregation of one's own data is a must. Technology makes self-aggregation of one's data increasingly cost-effective and should be encouraged.

What I say should be banned is private aggregation of personal and behavioral data for profit. In the medical domain that you raise we have numerous examples of how that goes wrong from Iceland selling its population's genomes _exclusively_ to some drug company to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center selling its patient records _exclusively_ to an AI startup. In-between we've seen equivalent scandals involving Google AI in England and IBM AI in Italy. Privatizing medical knowledge is a bad idea.

Can anyone on this list come up with a noble reason to aggregate behavioral data under private corporate control?

Adrian

On Wed, Mar 13, 2019 at 6:39 PM Guy Higgins < "> > wrote:
Is there a “baby and bathwater” conundrum here?  The following are merely my thoughts on the subject and engender no particular insight (but they do embody my “social and political prejudices” {tip o’ the hat to Dr Gould}):
  • There are two broad situations here
    • Sweep up everything and see what you can do with it to sell targeted ads to people in order to “con” them into buying s**t they might not ordinarily buy
    • Collect targeted information in order to understand either population-wide characteristics or individual-specific diagnostic data
  • I think everyone on this list is in agreement that the first sub-bullet above is abusive and should be addressed somehow
  • The second sub-bullet above can certainly be abused, but is, on the surface, not inherently abusive and is conducted with the intention of making things better for us as the human race and supportive of people under a doctor’s care.
  • This second sub-bullet (sbb) data collection may be the baby that we don’t want to throw out with the bath water.  
  • I have been diagnosed within inverted T wave on my EKG and Sinus Brady Cardia for decades.  Absent two bodies of data, I could easily be hurt by doctors misunderstanding my personal health
    • An inverted T wave can be a symptom if a heart problem, or it can be normal — without a personal EKG history, there’s no easy way for a doctor to tell which of those is the case.  Since every EKG I’ve ever had (maybe fifty of them since that is a routine part of an annual US Navy flight physical) has shown the invert T wave, it’s a yawner.
    • Sinus Brady Cardia can also be a symptom of heart problems, but since there exists an extensive data base that shows extremely strong correlation between endurance athletics and Sinus Brady Cardia, all the doc has ever had to do is ask, “you a runner?”  Again, a yawner.  
  • The point of those self-congratulatory stories is that there are, as everyone on this list appreciates, excellent non-commercial reasons for collecting personal data.  In one case, creating population-wide data bases, the association of the data with any individual is irrelevant and should not be allowed/permitted/whatever.  In another case, collecting personal data for the benefit of the person, there are excellent reasons for doing so, but it needs to be up to the person (recognizing that some people will respond as have the anti-vaxxers and decline to take advantage of the technology for their own benefit).
So, back to the baby/bath water conundrum — how do we make sure we allow people to either get rid of that used bath water or keep it as they desire (allow good ole Google to sweep up their personal behavior) and allow people to globally (or less-than-globally) opt in to the collection and anonymization of personal data contributing to bettering the human condition (I do not subscribe to the notion that getting personalized ads is bettering the human condition).  That assumes that we can also agree to and control our personal longitudinal data so that it’s available if we need it.

yes’ my thinnin’
(the other) Guy




On Wed, Mar 13, 2019 at 3:56 PM Benjamin Goering < " target="_blank"> > wrote:
Aggregation/bundling is one of the most fundamental ways of creating value.

Isn't that the essence of surveillance capitalism? Should society encourage value creation by allowing anyone other than the subject themselves to aggregate data about them? At what point does the value created through private or government aggregation turn into coercion / slavery?

Adrian


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Adrian Gropper MD

PROTECT YOUR FUTURE - RESTORE Health Privacy!
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