{"id":16058,"date":"2019-08-12T08:10:04","date_gmt":"2019-08-12T16:10:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2019\/08\/12\/news-9801\/"},"modified":"2019-08-12T08:10:04","modified_gmt":"2019-08-12T16:10:04","slug":"news-9801","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2019\/08\/12\/news-9801\/","title":{"rendered":"Facial recognition technology: force for good or privacy threat?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Credit to Author: Christopher Boyd| Date: Mon, 12 Aug 2019 15:00:00 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n

All across the world, governments and corporations are looking to invest in or develop facial recognition technology. From law enforcement to marketing campaigns, facial recognition is poised to make a splashy entrance into the mainstream. Biometrics are big business, and third party contracts generate significant profits for all. However, those profits often come at the expense of users.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s much to be said for ethics, privacy, and legality in facial recognition tech\u2014unfortunately, not much of it is pretty. We thought it was high time we take a hard look at this burgeoning field to see exactly<\/em> what’s going on around the world, behind the scenes and at the forefront.<\/p>\n

As it turns out…quite a lot.<\/p>\n

The next big thing in tech?<\/h3>\n

Wherever you look, government bodies, law enforcement, protestors, campaigners, pressure and policy groups, and even the tech developers themselves are at odds. Some want an increase in biometric surveillance, others highlight flaws due to bias in programming.<\/p>\n

One US city has banned facial tech outright, while some nations want to embrace it fully. Airport closed-circuit TV (CCTV)<\/a>? Fighting crime with shoulder-mounted cams? How about just selling products in a shopping mall using facial tracking to find interested customers? It\u2019s a non-stop battlefield with new lines being drawn in the sand 24\/7.<\/p>\n

Setting the scene: the 1960s<\/h3>\n

Facial recognition tech is not new. It was first conceptualised and worked on seriously in the mid ’60s by pioneers such as Helen Chan Wolf and Woodroe Bledsoe<\/a>. They did what they could to account for variances in imagery caused by degrees of head rotation using RAND tablets<\/a> to map 20 distances based on facial coordinates. From there, a name was assigned to each image. The computer then tried to remove the effect of changing the angle of the head from the distances it had already calculated, and recognise the correct individual placed before it.<\/p>\n

Work continued throughout the ’60s, and was by all accounts successful. The computers used consistently outperformed<\/a> humans where recognition tasks were concerned.<\/p>\n

Moving on: the 1990s<\/h3>\n

By the mid to late ’90s, airports, banks, and government buildings were making use of tech essentially built on its original premise. A new tool<\/a>, ZN-face, was designed to work with less-than-ideal angles of faces. It ignored obstructions, such as beards and glasses, to accurately determine the identity<\/a> of the person in the lens. Previously, this type of technology could flounder without clear, unobstructed shots, which made it difficult for software operators to determine someone’s identity. ZN-face could determine whether it had a match in 13 seconds.<\/p>\n

You can see a good rundown of these and other notable moments in early facial recognition development on this timeline.<\/a> It runs from the ’60s right up to the mid ’90s.<\/p>\n

The here and now<\/h3>\n

Looking at the global picture for a snapshot of current facial recognition tech reveals\u2026well, chaos to be honest. Several distinct flavours inhabit various regions. In the UK, law enforcement rallies the banners for endless automated facial recognition trials. This despite test results so bad the universal response from researchers and even Members of Parliament is essentially \u201cplease stop.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reception in the United States is a little frostier. Corporations jostle for contracts, and individual cities either accept or totally reject what\u2019s on offer. As for Asia, Hong Kong experiences something akin to actual dystopian cyberpunk. Protestors not only evade facial recognitio<\/a>n tech but attempt to turn it back on the government.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s begin with British police efforts to convince everyone that seemingly faulty tech is as good as they claim.<\/p>\n

All around the world: The UK<\/h3>\n

The UK is no stranger to biometrics controversy, having made occasional forays into breach of privacy and stolen personal information<\/a>. A region averse to identity cards and national databases<\/a>, it still makes use of biometrics in other ways.<\/p>\n

Here’s an example of a small slice of everyday biometric activity in the UK. Non-European residents pay for Biometric Residence Permits<\/a> every visa renewal\u2014typically every 30 months. Those cards contain biometric information alongside a photograph, visa conditions, and other pertinent information linked to several Home Office<\/a> databases.<\/p>\n

This Freedom of Information request<\/a> reveals that information on one Biometric Residence Permit card is tied to four separate databases:<\/p>\n