Ever since the concept of facial recognition was introduced, there was much controversy around the subject. Sure, it would be great to be able to use it for convenience and safety purposes but it is very hard to draw the line between security and violation of privacy. This is still a very hot subject near the end of 2017 and here’s why.
What Are The Costs Of Safety And Security?
Nobody can deny the improvements facial recognition software brings to the table when it comes to security and safety. Face recognition software can be used to fight fraud, for example. It is well known that there’s no perfect identification system. However, face recognition log in for employees or payments is already used and it proves to be highly efficient.
The same technology can be used to fight threats like terrorism. Airports, government, and other public places are looking to increase their security by adding face recognition systems to aid in the identification of terrorists and other criminals. Everyone wants a safer nation and the facial recognition systems along with neural networks will make the system more and more accurate, thus preventing tragedies like the one in Manchester.
Safer Financial Transactions via Facial Recognition
Face recognition is also likely to replace and augment financial transactions. Instead of a pin, password or token that you have to carry around, you could withdraw money just by looking at a camera. The same goes for paying at the supermarket or sending money to a friend.
Facial Recognition From An Ethical Point Of View
Technology, being developed by human beings, has the power to do right or wrong. What happens when face recognition technology and all of its capabilities are used with other, more selfish intentions? Well, there are several ways this awesome technology can be put to bad use:
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Aggressive advertising – besides just knowing a person’s purchase history retailers could even monitor the emotional state of a specific customer in order to send him very effective personalized ads and make him spend more
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Law enforcement abuse – keeping in mind the benefits it offers in reducing crime, facial recognition can go very wrong in this field. Facial recognition can be used to scan crowds and specifically identify certain protesters and pursue them individually afterwards. With this tool, there’s basically no anonymity and it can also be used as a discouragement technique.
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Stalking – this seems to be the scariest issues of them all. If the technology gets accessible enough, stalkers could easily use it to know everything their victims do as everything you do becomes recognizable.
Closing Words
No matter which side you take, it is clear that the problem of face recognition is an ongoing subject of research and controversy for more than 20 years now. Even though a large number of approaches have been discussed and even implemented, wide face recognition software is still far for being accurate enough. The vast facial variability and environmental conditions make it very hard to put 100% trust in such a system. Even though all kind of 3D sensors can help improve the system a lot, there is no perfect bio-metric system.
But the future is now, and neither technological nor ethical questions of developing and implementing this technology stop major companies like Apple, from implementing the new tech into their popular products.
A Colchester based internet writer, enthusiasting about techonology, culture and the entertainment media.
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