I've Seen That Face Before Somewhere…

Perhaps the most controversial of modern technologies and one that throws up many legal and moral questions is facial recognition. While its advocates say that the technology helps in the fight against crime, its critics fear that adopting it unchecked will diminish civil liberties and could lead to increased discrimination due to the technology's algorithmic bias.

The ability to maximize its advantages with no legal oversight is being seen in particular in China currently, where the government is reportedly using it as a key technology in the repression of its Muslim Uighur minority. Furthermore, Chinese firms are reportedly selling the technology to other authoritarian regimes around the globe.

Even in the United States, facial recognition technology is being increasingly deployed used by police forces via small contractors working for them. The New York Times recently reported on a facial recognition system that is able to search three billion photos that are freely available and taken from websites such as Facebook without the permission of the users. Astonishingly, these are being used by more than 600 local law enforcement agencies.

Do new technologies such as facial recognition violate due process? After all, the system does not enjoy much oversight, and its role in legal cases is not always disclosed to defendants. In some cases, where police have used facial recognition and where investigators are not allowed to rely purely on facial recognition results to carry out an arrest, documentation appears to show that officers sometimes have not collected any other evidence.

Facial recognition technology is used by law enforcement agencies in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and elsewhere. The FBI and other federal agencies are also using it, according to a New York Times report which added that half of American adults are in a law enforcement facial recognition database.

Tech Giants Waiting For Regulatory Guidelines

Recognizing the huge issues involved, the world's largest technology firms are said to be steering clear of the technology for now, or at least waiting for regulatory guidelines to be laid down.

Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Alphabet and Google, has followed in the footsteps of the European Union and recently suggested a temporary ban. “I think it is important that governments and regulations tackle it sooner rather than later and give a framework for it,” according to a Reuters report. “It can be immediate but maybe there’s a waiting period before we really think about how it’s being used ... It’s up to governments to chart the course.”

Google does not sell facial recognition services, saying that it has concerns regarding misuse and mass surveillance. Pichai says there is a need for greater regulation of artificial intelligence in general. “Companies such as ours cannot just build promising new technology and let market forces decide how it will be used," he wrote in the Financial Times.

Meanwhile, Microsoft’s chief legal officer Brad Smith said: “Look, you can try to solve a problem with a meat cleaver or a scalpel. And, you know, if you can solve the problem in a way that enables good things to get done and bad things to stop happening ... that does require a scalpel. This is young technology. It will get better. But the only way to make it better is actually to continue developing it. And the only way to continue developing it actually is to have more people using it.”

The EU is considering a five-year ban on the use of facial recognition in public places. The EU’s proposal would give governments and regulators time to assess the dangers of the technology.

Microsoft sells facial recognition technology but has imposed limits on its usage. It will let police use it in jails but not on the street, and is not selling it to immigration services.

Meanwhile, Amazon is said to want to work with police, especially via its video Ring doorbells. However, critics say this could provide law enforcement officers with access to a massive surveillance network built by customers themselves supplying information about their location.

Facial Technology Not A Perfect Solution

The biggest problem with facial recognition is its inconsistent performance with people of different races. "The findings of government tests released in December show that the type of facial recognition used in police investigations tends to produce more false positive results when evaluating images of black women," reported the New York Times, which has been looking closely at the issue of facial recognition technology."

In addition, lesser-quality pictures are known to contribute to mismatches. Meanwhile, poor lighting, faces at an angle, and even slight disguises caused baseball caps or sunglasses can reduce accuracy.

Law enforcement bodies in China have solved this issue via the installation of high-definition cameras with bright lights at face level. That clearly won't work in a Western democratic country. The Chinese also link facial recognition systems to other technology that scans cellphones in an area. "If a face and a phone are detected in the same place, the system becomes more confident in a match," a Times investigation found.

In conclusion, although this technology can help improve security by identifying criminals and terrorists, it's fast and accurate, and its no-contact non-intrusive nature can help overcome issues related to fingerprints, there are clearly controversial elements. These include the high costs of implementation, the vast amount of storage space needed and the changes in appearance that can potentially throw off these systems. And, as mentioned above, there are the legal and moral issues involved that are far from resolved.