Posted: 7/23/2019 Updated: 10/10/2019
Update Of 10/10/2019
I was remiss not to mention that facial recognition could also be successfully and effectively used to provide government services. Apparently, France and Singapore are at the forefront of this endeavor!
“France is poised to become the first European country to use facial recognition technology to give citizens a secure digital identity -- whether they want it or not.” (S1)
Original Post
Facial recognition defined here: Facial recognition + facial tracking + facial reidentification. Probably, we are missing some, other related tasks here.
Controversy has been building up over this fairly new technology. There are concerns about privacy; abuse by law enforcement; potential for (racial) bias; abuse by authoritarian governments like in China etc. Most of these concerns are rather minor or can easily be ameliorated with time and effort. Some geographic jurisdictions have prematurely chosen to ban it for now. Banning such new technology is certainly a bad choice as if the lessons of history were never learnt.
However, the benefits of this new technology, as usual, most likely will far outweigh its disadvantages.
Some benefits are:
Better evidence against criminals
Better evidence for the innocent accused of crimes etc.
Better evidence against abuse by government officials (incl. law enforcement)
Protection of innocent people from violence or crimes (e.g. fewer opportunities for a crime)
Better chances of recovery of e.g. missing persons or children
What needs to be done? We need a legal framework that greatly reduces the potential for abuse of facial recognition e.g. court approvals, perhaps citizen councils for oversight and so on.
As far as authoritarian regimes like China are concerned, unless the citizens of China protest the omnipresent surveillance and its reported abuses by government authorities, the regime might get away with it.
Sources (S):
- French Liberte Tested by Nationwide Facial Recognition ID Plan (10/3/19)
