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In recent years, facial recognition technology has gone through cycles of falling in and out of favor, adding to complex questions about artificial intelligence and privacy. Neither facial recognition nor AI is new, but the ways they are applied opens up business potential as well as liability. An interview for an upcoming InformationWeek series on generative AI shed additional light on the intersection of these technologies and why the public may need proactive deterrents for both. Ben Y. Zhao, professor of computer science at the University of Chicago, led a team that worked on a tool called Fawkes, which is meant to disrupt unknown third parties from creating facial recognition profiles to track individuals by using images found on social media. The conversation with Zhao on Fawkes, and his later work on Nightshade, will appear next week on InformationWeek. The name of the Fawkes tool was derived from Guy Fawkes, whose likeness was adopted in the form of a mask as a symbol by hacktivist group Anonymous and others who seek to maintain anonymity while engaging in various forms of protest. The Fawkes tool was developed around the time Clearview.ai got sued for scraping data from social media to flesh out its facial recognition database and tools, which were sold to law enforcement. Related:FTC Prescribes Ban on Rite Aid’s AI Facial Recognition Use Not long after that lawsuit, Clearview.ai was back in headlines, this time offering its services to Ukraine for the potential use of facial recognition to spot Russian agents. This exemplifies some of the back and forth associated with facial recognition. Meta bowed out of facial recognition for tagging photos on Facebook. The Federal Trade Commission banned Rite Aid from using facial recognition for five years after it was discovered the pharmacy chain’s use of biometric technology unjustly target and tagged minorities as potential shoplifters. And those are just some recent steps in this dance between innovating with AI and facial recognition and addressing the issues they raise. Over the past five years there have been discussions of facial recognitions risks, the liability concerns associated with AI, as well as potential uses of facial recognition that do not violate civil rights while responsibly respecting individuals. This particular dilemma between privacy, security, and opportunity dates back even further. The rush of interest in biometrics that arose after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — just a few years shy of a quarter century ago — never completely went away. The effort to identify potential attackers became paramount, a natural reaction steeped in a desire to restore a sense of safety. Related:Clearview AI Offers Face Recognition AI to Ukraine This led to a boom of business for companies that promised to sift through digital images to catch bad actors. This also opened the door for potential authoritarian abuses. Regardless, businesses continue to look for ways to make facial recognition part of the identification equation. But is that viable in a world where the right to privacy and the right to be forgotten continue to gain momentum and strength? This episode of DOS Won’t Hunt explores the tension at that intersection of AI, security, facial recognition, and lessons that could still be learned from Guy Fawkes and other masks. Listen to the full podcast here. source

With NFL teams back on the field and fans returning to the stands, the team behind the scenes at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., is tightening up its data game by adopting a consolidated storage resource. Jim Mercurio, executive vice president and general manager at Levi’s Stadium, says they turned to hybrid cloud data storage company Qumulo to deliver upgrades and updates to data storage for security camera footage and other demands. “We needed to find a way to consolidate some of the storage that unbeknownst to me was really siloed at the time,” he says. “To be able to eliminate five racks of equipment and not have 54 verticals or silos that could be difficult to manage, allows you to expand your other kind of resources.” The stadium ingests upwards of 44 terabytes of data per day, he says, which includes video, video analytics, as well as safeguarding the team’s historical photography accumulated over the years. Prior to tapping Qumulo to consolidate storage, data captured at the stadium was a bit spread out. Mercurio says a goal when Levi’s Stadium, homefield of the San Francisco 49ers football team, opened in 2014 was to make the venue one of the first of its generation in terms of technology. “We really focused on futureproofing this stadium as best we can,” he says. Several years on, eventually there came a need to reassess how some of that technology was implemented. Furthermore, the old data storage resource was approaching end-of-life. That led to Qumulo being brought in, Mercurio says. “We said, ‘Hey, we’ve got 54 different kinds of verticals of storage here — can you help us with this?’” With the current NFL season underway, he is eyeing possibilities for next year as the country continues to reorient in light of the pandemic. The stadium might see 10 to 12 NFL games in 2022, Mercurio says, plus another four to five large-scale events such as concerts and soccer games. Special events hosted at the stadium, which can be smaller-scale meetings with 30 people to corporate holiday parties with 2,500 attendees, might number more than 100 to 200 in a year under more normal circumstances. “We have likened ourselves to a midsize convention center,” he says. Though the pandemic put a wrinkle in everyone’s operations, Mercurio says Levi’s Stadium is looking ahead to the resumption of catered and special events it would host. Activity at the stadium extends beyond the NFL games, with Levi’s Stadium serving as office space for operations such as security, public relations, broadcasting, and marketing. There may be more possibilities ahead for the data and information captured at the venue, Mercurio says. “The next phase I think I could see us moving into is game video footage for coaches and things of that nature.” The transition to consolidated data storage can help keep that data protected along with other business use cases. “Stadiums are no longer just used for Sundays at 1 o’clock,” he says. “These are buildings that are used constantly and not just for sports; for non-NFL events.” When creating a technology game plan for Levi’s Stadium, Mercurio says it was important to go beyond new innovations just for the sake of it. Finding tech resources to help solve problems became the focus, he says. For example, there was some prior debate about whether the stadium would use turnstiles to control entry. “We chose handheld devices as a result,” Mercurio says. That plan has since evolved. This year Levi’s Stadium instituted turnstile, self-service kiosks that can scan and can be one frictionless technology used by ticketholders. The buildup of data from an ever-growing stream of sources drove Levi’s Stadium to continue adapting its digital landscape. “That technology impacts your Wi-Fi needs, your storage needs, your communication needs, your infrastructure needs,” Mercurio says. “The draw on data storage for facial recognition is so massive.” With security measures such as magnetometers, facial recognition, and license plate readers becoming more intrinsic to running such venues, it heightens demand to consolidate data and for the IT team to have a substantial role in operations, he says. Data and analytics are more appreciated now from a business perspective, Mercurio says, for decision-making and better understanding demographics of who is in the stadium and tailor offerings to them to reduce wasteful costs and increase revenue. “It gives you opportunities to streamline things and the [food] menu items your customers actually want,” he says. “Data allows you to do that.” Mercurio says the transition to Qumulo is still underway and thus far has been rather seamless. The move offered flexibility, he says, while also addressing cybersecurity concerns. It also helped the ongoing collaborative efforts among stadium operations that include guest services, food and beverage, security, grounds crew, engineers, business and analytics, legal, and finance. “Whatever you can do to improve the guest experience and service, the 49ers and Levi’s Stadium are committed to doing that,” he says. Related Content: IBM Showcases Strategic Digital Changes at the 2021 US Open Formula One, NFL, and NHL Work on Their Hustle with AWS New Storage Trends Promise to Help Enterprises Handle a Data Avalanche source

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