Our increasingly Internet-centric lives create many possibilities for digital interaction and intrusion, which may be thrilling or troubling depending on one’s perspective.
Facial recognition technology is a particularly stark instance of those possibilities, and of the risks and benefits associated with them. There has been significant public debate concerning facial recognition technology in the UK. In some other countries, notably China, the technology is already in widespread use, and provides a simple, efficient and effective vector for biometric identification by the state and the private sector alike. The potential unlocked by a biometric identification vector which operates on faces (the primary means of direct human interaction with the physical world), for security purposes, targeted advertising, and much else besides, is obvious. The privacy and anonymity implications, and the risks of over-use of such technology, are also obvious. Continue reading