Facial recognition systems are getting more ubiquitous. From the iPhone X’s Facial ID, to Windows Hello, to Facebook’s automated tagging, it is getting easier for companies — and anyone with access to their tech — to track you simply by your face. And unlike fingerprints, you don’t have 10 faces you can swap with for…
Facial recognition systems are getting more ubiquitous. From the iPhone X’s Facial ID, to Windows Hello, to Facebook’s automated tagging, it is getting easier for companies — and anyone with access to their tech — to track you simply by your face. And unlike fingerprints, you don’t have 10 faces you can swap with for authentication reasons.
Microsoft’s Brad Smith has noted a number of ways such technology could be used in the real world in no security users. finding a lost child, stopping a terrorist before they can act, helping the blind identify friends simply with the camera as a second set of eyes.
The converse is true. A paedophile could just as easily track a missing young child, a kidnapper could stalk a target, a state could identify dissidents and use this technology to punish them by lowering their social credit.
Microsoft is aware that all this is something like 1984 and science fiction, but the time lag between science fiction and science fact has long since narrowed as technological advances have progressed, while human nature has yet to do so.
The firm hopes to start a conversation around the role of facial recognition technology in the way we interact with everyday society from day to day,
Microsoft has raised a few points that they believe the tech sector should take into consideration when developing this technology.
Microsoft believes that government regulation from an elected body provides the right forum for this conversation, rather than for unchecked technological organisation with differing motives to regulate this. As we can see with Facebook’s privacy fiasco, whos to say that such a thing can’t happen with something as important as facial recognition data.
“As we think about the evolving range of technology uses, we think it’s important to acknowledge that the future is not simple.” Smith said, “A government agency that is doing something objectionable today may do something that is laudable tomorrow. We therefore need a principled approach for facial recognition technology, embodied in law, that outlasts a single administration or the important political issues of a moment.”
Source: Microsoft
