In very early July, the G20 met in Toronto. (Never let this circus come to your town.) As such, there was the inevitable demonstrations -- mostly peaceful but some violent -- and the inevitable police overreaction. I've heard credible reports of untended broken arm, etc. The usual investigations are taking place. The police are now talking about using facial recognition software to identify vandals. (Seems they grabbed 1K of the wrong people at the time.) One of the most solid areas of research by my mentor Charles Tilly [RIP] is that historically the police harm more people than vice-versa. I've just written to one of the investigating units that they use facial recognition software to identify the police who may have attacked civilians without provocation. After all, the police already have photos of their own officers on file. Barry Wellman _______________________________________________________________________ S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC NetLab Director Department of Sociology 725 Spadina Avenue, Room 388 University of Toronto Toronto Canada M5S 2J4 twitter:barrywellman http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman fax:+1-416-978-3963 Updating history: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php _______________________________________________________________________

It seems so senseless, those with less peaceful intentions will wear shawls around their faces anyway. (Gait analysis on the other hand…) There was a new mobile face recognition app in the news not that long ago: http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-02/augmented-identity-app-helps-you-identify-friend-perfect-strangers No idea if it really works, but perhaps a new 'smart mobs' tool? best: michiel Michiel de Lange Mail: mdelange@bijt.org Web: http://blog.bijt.org Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mdelange Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/michiel.delange LinkedIn: http://nl.linkedin.com/in/michieldelange On Jul 15, 2010, at 4:28 PM, Barry Wellman wrote: > In very early July, the G20 met in Toronto. (Never let this circus come to your town.) > > As such, there was the inevitable demonstrations -- mostly peaceful but some violent -- and the inevitable police overreaction. I've heard credible reports of untended broken arm, etc. > > The usual investigations are taking place. > > The police are now talking about using facial recognition software to identify vandals. (Seems they grabbed 1K of the wrong people at the time.) > > One of the most solid areas of research by my mentor Charles Tilly [RIP] is that historically the police harm more people than vice-versa. > > I've just written to one of the investigating units that they use facial recognition software to identify the police who may have attacked civilians without provocation. After all, the police already have photos of their own officers on file. > > > Barry Wellman > _______________________________________________________________________ > > S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC NetLab Director > Department of Sociology 725 Spadina Avenue, Room 388 > University of Toronto Toronto Canada M5S 2J4 twitter:barrywellman > http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman fax:+1-416-978-3963 > Updating history: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php > _______________________________________________________________________ > > > _______________________________________________ > CITASA mailing list > CITASA@list.citasa.org > http://list.citasa.org/mailman/listinfo/citasa_list.citasa.org