Facial recognition: Positive uses and unforeseen consequences
This week, technology news feeds were rocked with the recent lawsuit from Ken Paxton, attorney general from the state of Texas, against Meta (formerly Facebook). The suit is for Meta’s alleged harvesting of facial recognition data from users in the state for over a decade without prior informed consent. The feature, CNN Business reports, “worked by analyzing faces in photos, including those of non-Facebook users, and recommending that Facebook users tag the people that the tool identified.” The service has since been discontinued after a settlement reached over a similar suit from Illinois. However, Paxton argues that by that point, Meta had violated the Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier (CUBI) Act (passed in 2009) billions of times.
Regardless of the merits of this most recent suit, facial recognition technology is gaining speed and being used for several interesting purposes around the world.
The most familiar application of facial recognition technology is smartphones that recognize their user's face to unlock. One of the most popular methods here is Apple’s Face ID, first launched on the iPhone X and now available on most new models and some iPads. It uses several scanners to identify unique features of your face and can unlock not only your phone but also banking and other high security apps, not to mention approving Apple Pay purchases.
Another great use of facial recognition is in photo app organization. Many photo apps will sort photos by face so you can see, for example, all the cute pictures in your library of you and your sweetheart. It works surprisingly well, even linking baby pictures with their older counterparts. The service has improved greatly since it first came out – it used to split photos of me from before age 14 and after!
There are, unfortunately, dark sides to this technology. It is well known that the Chinese government has been using this to track the Uighurs, a minority Muslim population that is discriminated against and highly abused. These camera systems can alert law enforcement if Uighurs start to show up in new areas, pushing the bounds of what is deemed acceptable use of this technology. And this development may also strike closer to home. Many people are worried after New York City Mayor Eric Adams’s announcement that he is supporting its use for investigatory purposes, even though this use of the technology is widely resisted in the city.
Facial recognition is an important tool that can be used to better our lives and have fun. However, it’s becoming apparent that we need to discuss boundaries before we can fully take advantage of its benefits.
By Charles Metz