In some nations, systems track your face or algorithms of your face. Although this causes dispute and privacy fears, nations that have been using this technology could improve national security. Countries like Australia had been taking facial profiles before anyone noticed.
In Western Australia, if you contract Covid-19, you must quarantine for a week. The local authorities will check on you by sending text messages that require you to take a selfie (smile!) within 15 minutes. Authorities will use GPS tracking and Facial Recognition technology to determine whether the individual is at their quarantine location or not. If not, you’re going to be in some trouble. If they catch you outside, you will pay a potentially heavy fine.
The Australian government has been tracking individuals with an app called G2G, made by a local start-up tech company named Genvis, since 2020. Currently, more than 150,000 people use the app. Other states in Australia are using similar apps (though provided by different companies), these states include, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania.
In the US, many cities such as San Francisco, Oakland, and Somerville prohibited the use of facial recognition beginning May 2019. Amazon, Google, IBM, and Microsoft also pledged that they will not sell private information and facial recognition algorithms to public agencies until federal laws have been passed. In November 2021, Meta declared that Facebook would delete one billion “faceprints” and block the use of picture tagging.
Now, a question remains: Do we want to prioritize privacy over convenience? To many, privacy is a top priority, but governments want convenience. To governments, checkpoints and identification could be faster at international airports. This could also speed up the process of ID processing and no need for fingerprints. But facial recognition could bring racial discrimination. The algorithms are mostly tested and based on white males. Women, minorities, the disabled, and others could be subject to misidentification.
Since 1960, when facial recognition was first introduced, the technology has significantly improved. Although algorithms may vary, most have an error rate of less than one percent. Back in the day, technology was unable to distinguish between siblings, aged faces, and even similar faces. Nowadays, face recognition technology can even identify you in a hood, facemask, or sunglasses.
Nowadays, facial recognition has a failing status of only 0.08%! This means that facial recognition is getting more accurate and faster. Garrett O’Hara, the field chief technologist at Mimecast, said, “In the next couple of years, we’re going to see a big shift away from people using passwords, which are totally insecure. Biometrics will become the default.” face algorithms are able to accurately detect a person from more than a kilometer away.
“It’s incredibly useful technology. But if somebody had asked us 20 years ago when the world wide web was starting up if we wanted to live in a world where our interactions and activity were collected and tracked, the majority of us probably would have said that it sounded creepy,” says O’Hara. “We’re now replicating the tracking of online space to include physical space as well. And we’re not asking the questions about it that we should be.”
Facial recognition might enhance the police force of small nations. But privacy matters. As a society, will we accept it or not? We’ll have to wait a couple of years for the technology to improve for us to closely examine it again.
In Western Australia, if you contract Covid-19, you must quarantine for a week. The local authorities will check on you by sending text messages that require you to take a selfie (smile!) within 15 minutes. Authorities will use GPS tracking and Facial Recognition technology to determine whether the individual is at their quarantine location or not. If not, you’re going to be in some trouble. If they catch you outside, you will pay a potentially heavy fine.
The Australian government has been tracking individuals with an app called G2G, made by a local start-up tech company named Genvis, since 2020. Currently, more than 150,000 people use the app. Other states in Australia are using similar apps (though provided by different companies), these states include, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania.
In the US, many cities such as San Francisco, Oakland, and Somerville prohibited the use of facial recognition beginning May 2019. Amazon, Google, IBM, and Microsoft also pledged that they will not sell private information and facial recognition algorithms to public agencies until federal laws have been passed. In November 2021, Meta declared that Facebook would delete one billion “faceprints” and block the use of picture tagging.
Now, a question remains: Do we want to prioritize privacy over convenience? To many, privacy is a top priority, but governments want convenience. To governments, checkpoints and identification could be faster at international airports. This could also speed up the process of ID processing and no need for fingerprints. But facial recognition could bring racial discrimination. The algorithms are mostly tested and based on white males. Women, minorities, the disabled, and others could be subject to misidentification.
Since 1960, when facial recognition was first introduced, the technology has significantly improved. Although algorithms may vary, most have an error rate of less than one percent. Back in the day, technology was unable to distinguish between siblings, aged faces, and even similar faces. Nowadays, face recognition technology can even identify you in a hood, facemask, or sunglasses.
Nowadays, facial recognition has a failing status of only 0.08%! This means that facial recognition is getting more accurate and faster. Garrett O’Hara, the field chief technologist at Mimecast, said, “In the next couple of years, we’re going to see a big shift away from people using passwords, which are totally insecure. Biometrics will become the default.” face algorithms are able to accurately detect a person from more than a kilometer away.
“It’s incredibly useful technology. But if somebody had asked us 20 years ago when the world wide web was starting up if we wanted to live in a world where our interactions and activity were collected and tracked, the majority of us probably would have said that it sounded creepy,” says O’Hara. “We’re now replicating the tracking of online space to include physical space as well. And we’re not asking the questions about it that we should be.”
Facial recognition might enhance the police force of small nations. But privacy matters. As a society, will we accept it or not? We’ll have to wait a couple of years for the technology to improve for us to closely examine it again.
