Facial recognition will soon be everywhere. Are we prepared?
Dylan Curran
Some companies are already testing this new technology, but
it raises questions about how surveillance can be abused
Tue 21 May 2019 13.10 BST
Last modified on Tue 21 May 2019 15.17 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/21/facial-recognition-privacy-prepared-regulation
Imagine this: you walk into work and the camera above the
doors scans your face, opening them seamlessly without you lifting a finger.
You sit down at your computer and it instantly unlocks. Oh, but you need to run
to the pharmacist at lunch. You walk up to a camera, and your prescription is
deposited in front of you. You go home from work, a camera blinks, and your
door unlocks as your hand touches the handle. You look at your face in the
mirror, and it tells you to moisturize. It’s going to be a hot day tomorrow, so
it recommends you wear sun-cream. It’ll even order it for you (next-day
delivery from Amazon of course). Sounds pretty good right?
Now imagine this: you walk down the street and a pair of
policemen stare at you. Their body cameras flash red and they instantly pull
their guns and tell you to drop to the ground, you’re under arrest. You comply
and after several days in jail, they let you know you were misidentified as a
violent criminal on the loose due to the 1.3% margin of error. Regardless of your
innocence, you’re in the system. Now wherever you go, cameras that capture you
will automatically increase the “danger score” of the area and alert police to
watch out for you. Even worse, as you enter stores, the facial recognition
system lets the staff know a recently arrested individual has entered the
building. They stare suspiciously at you now. Doesn’t sound so good? Facial
recognition already has these problems with people of color.
As fantastical as either of those scenarios might seem, it’s
quite possible that this will be the future we’re headed towards. Companies
have a neverending appetite to use powerful new software to make their
customer’s life easier and governments persistently feel the need to misuse
emerging technologies for the greater good.
Governments
persistently feel the need to misuse emerging technologies for the greater good
The “benefits” of the technology are already being
implemented by airlines, as seen by JetBlue Airways. Rather than scanning a
boarding pass or handing over a passport, you simply stare into a camera and
you’re verified. The Department of Homeland Security kindly provides their
database of citizens’ faces to JetBlue. There’s no opt-in, your face is just
handed over. This does save time and optimize processes, but it raises the
question: do you have the right to your own face? Who is responsible for the
protection of this information? Can I even remove my face from this database
and just go the old-fashioned way? We have no idea, and it’s already in airports
and being tested in law enforcement.
The downsides of the technology, however, are on full
display in China. A reported 200m surveillance cameras around the country are
doing everything from tracking shoppers in stores to preventing violent crime to
catching jaywalkers. Virtually every citizen of China is in this massive facial
database, and your whereabouts are tracked at every junction. Even more
troubling, a new Chinese startup can identify citizens anywhere in mere
seconds. We all know how little China respects privacy, but can we trust
western countries to act any differently? As we’ve seen with the mass
surveillance programs run by the NSA and the United Kingdom’s GCHQ, evidently
not. In the UK, a man was even recently fined for covering his face while
walking past one of these facial cameras.
We humans have the incessant need to make things smoother,
better and faster. This desire has helped drive the remarkable progress we have
achieved as a society. However, we’ve reached the stage where our technological
leaps and bounds no longer save us hours, or even minutes – they shave only
seconds from our day-to-day tasks. The costs to our privacy are no longer so
clearly outweighed by the benefits this technology can provide.
It’s time to take a step back and ask some necessary
questions. We need to discuss whether we actually need widespread facial
recognition technology, what sensible legislation looks like and how to ensure
law enforcement doesn’t abuse this technology.
If we act now, I believe we can succeed in preventing
technology companies from infiltrating every aspect of our lives. If we don’t,
though, I fear the worst. Will we live in a future where our location is logged
in some unknown database wherever we go? Or a world where political dissidents
in a dictatorship have zero chance of maintaining their anonymity. Will
citizens walking the streets all around the planet glance at cameras, and
nervously wonder if someone, somewhere, just watched their name flash up on a
screen?
I hope not. But if we do, we will only have our own inaction
and complacency to blame.
Dylan Curran is a
data consultant and web developer
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