I have read in the privacy community that facial recognition done in public places is considered problematic. Not knowing what is considered the crux of the matter, I have to ask about some facial and behavioral recognition use cases here, and whether they are a problem or not
- Digital signage on roads, cameras in stores, etc. read pedestrians’ faces, movements, etc. and infer attributes for marketing purposes (sometimes the inferred attributes are stored as is, sometimes they are stored as statistics and the attributes themselves are removed)
- Public transit agencies can share police databases to identify and track individuals with arrest records
- Public agencies use facial and behavioral recognition to determine and track suspicious persons. The information read is stored.
They may arbitrarily track persons with arrest records for the purpose of preventing crimes before they happen. And persons with inexplicable behavior can be tracked as well. Furthermore, since some facial recognition systems have been introduced clandestinely, it is a realistic scenario that such systems are being used more extensively in a clandestine manner.
FIDO, IMF, UN, and other large orgs are talking about making biometrics normal to use many times a day to login to your phone, PC (via “service provider”), board a bus or plane or taxi…soon, we won’t be able to get away from it.
Remember how much has socially changed in the last 40 years and what was acceptable then is frowned upon now - or vice versa? In another 40 years, your inability to keep up with the times could land you on the bad-boy list - being cut off from internet/phone access, travel, the ability to pay for things, etc.
Humans (all life forms really) were made to be free and not digitally enslaved or bound.