Will facial recognition technology end the era of freedom?
Computers use the facial recognition system to identify people by mapping their facial features, and comparing that information with a database of faces. This technology is widely used until it has become a reliable tool for investigations and identification of people and faces. What are its different uses, and to learn more about this system, see this report.
A facial recognition system is a system capable of identifying and verifying people, by comparing and analyzing different patterns based on their facial features. The most prominent of these uses appears in security purposes.
The methods used in a facial recognition system vary depending on the application and the manufacturer, but generally involve a series of steps that capture, process, analyze and match the face to a recorded database of different images; Where the system captures 80 nodal points on the human face that are used to measure variables of a person's face, such as the length and width of the nose, eye depth and the shape of the facial bones, although facial recognition technology has not yet reached its peak, it has made enough progress to find a series of applications and programs Its uses have varied greatly, to a large extent widely used around us.
Among the most prominent of these uses of the system: (public security, unlocking phones, finding missing persons, forensic investigations, diagnosing diseases, identifying people on social media, tracking school attendance) so far.
The newest weapon of the authorities
One of the pillars of the surveillance industry is facial recognition technology, which has raised concern recently, especially with headlines such as that "the FBI has access to more than 640 million images" through a facial recognition database and the use of smart sunglasses that can To make public surveillance secret and ubiquitous, of course, we now know a lot about other use cases for facial recognition. The identity of the man who killed 5 people at a newspaper office in Maryland, and a month later, was used to identify two people suspected of poisoning Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the UK.
There are more and more cases where governments and companies are trying to apply this technology to CCTV and portable video recorders. Tech companies are also working on creating facial recognition software that can, among other things, help blind people know who's in a picture, or even who's in Room with him, plus, credit card companies hope facial recognition will be the next step in payment authentication.
We are becoming aware of the facial recognition features in our mobile phones, but in turn, we have seen how facial recognition technology can be abused. There are more and more cases where governments and companies are trying to apply this technology to CCTV and portable video recorders, for example. In places like the border departure hall at Hong Kong International Airport, casinos in the Chinese region of Macau, schools in mainland China, concert venues, public housing estates, and even at road crossings, faces are quietly scanned, as the technology is increasingly used every time. place.
And while facial recognition is quickly becoming the newest weapon for authorities in various countries, the problems this technology has caused have sparked a lot of controversy. Law enforcement departments have certainly found automatic facial recognition technology to be useful, making it easier to identify suspects through The comparison with a database bearing their faces, and enhances efficiency in law enforcement, but studies conducted in the United States and Europe indicated that these techniques are unreliable. Archives records of wanted criminals, in order to identify the suspects in the searches.
Your face reveals your identity
With regard to the latest surveillance method, in February 2018, the Chinese police introduced a new addition to their crowd-monitoring toolkit, as hundreds of millions of Chinese began traveling for the Lunar New Year holiday to use sports glasses equipped with facial recognition devices to use to check their identity. While this technology is likely useful in apprehending criminals, it could make it easier for authorities to track down political dissidents and identify ethnic minorities. Beijing-based technology LLVision is the developer of these smart glasses, as the Chinese company produces wearable video cameras, and although the video glasses are sold to anyone, it screens the buyers of its facial recognition glasses, and does not sell them to ordinary consumers.
China is already a global leader in deploying the latest artificial intelligence-based surveillance technologies, and mobile devices can extend the scope of this surveillance, allowing authorities to search in places where fixed cameras are not being scanned, and respond more quickly, and according to the Chinese company, tests revealed that The smart glasses are able to verify individuals from a database of 10,000 people, and can do so within moments. The database used to compare images is in a handheld device instead of a cloud. Environmental noise.
Not only that, according to the New York Times, cameras in some Chinese cities are "checking train stations for the most wanted people, and screens the size of a billboard show the faces of streetwalkers and a list of people who don't pay their debts." Facial recognition is also used in Xinjiang to help persecute members of the Muslim minority in the Uighurs, as the state collects their data, including facial scans, to track them and map their relationships with friends and family, although this technology is likely useful in catching criminals. However, it may make it easier for authorities to track down political dissidents and identify ethnic minorities, and according to William Ni, a China researcher at Amnesty International, the ability to give individual police officers facial recognition technology in sunglasses could make the surveillance situation in China ubiquitous in the world. everywhere.
privacy violation
It is possible for technology companies to exploit facial recognition algorithms for a variety of purposes, such as sending targeted advertisements, and other applications that may help them reap great profits, which prompted companies, including Facebook, to recognize the importance of their stock of facial recognition data, noting that the company It did not specify the size of its databases, but the company has more than 250 billion images uploaded to its servers, and 350 million images are uploaded to its services daily, and privacy advocates focus their campaigns on facial recognition technologies due to their ease of use, unlike identity recognition technologies such as Fingerprint scanners, facial recognition technologies can work secretly, as it is enough to put a good camera in a public place and connect it to private computers to capture all the data. Similar claims in different regions around the world, which may lead to the emergence of new laws to control the use of facial recognition technologies.
biased and racist
A new US government study revealed that “facial recognition technology used in banks, smartphones, airports and schools is racist, because it misidentifies African Americans and Asians 100 times more than whites.” The study pointed out that “facial recognition systems can yield particularly inaccurate results, especially for African Americans and Asians.” The study’s authors analyzed dozens of algorithms, and researchers at the US government’s “National Institute of Standards and Technology” monitored two algorithms that misidentified the gender of black women in 35% of Many activists and researchers considered that “algorithms make a lot of mistakes, and some innocent people may find themselves in prison, in addition to the danger of databases being hacked and used by criminals.”
Algorithms developed in the United States recorded higher error rates with Asians and Americans from black or indigenous tribes as well. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), an influential non-governmental human rights organization, said that “the new study proves first of all that this technology is not sufficiently developed and therefore should not be used.”
"Government scientists confirm that this surveillance technology is flawed and biased," said Jay Stanley, an analyst with this organization. "False identification could lead to a missed plane appointment, endless interrogations, or being put on a watch list, as well as tensions," he said. With police officers and arrests without foundation, or perhaps worse."
Federal ban
Several companies, including Amazon and Clarifai, are working to create reliable facial recognition technology for use by government and law enforcement agencies to catch criminals and find missing children. Amazon's Rekognition can instantly identify, analyze and track people and within seconds, the software can Compare the information it collects with databases of millions of images. Law enforcement agencies have used this technology to help find missing people and identify suspects in terrorist attacks. While this technology may have benefits, it has recently faced some backlash. People who are concerned about racial bias and protect citizen privacy.
San Francisco became the first US city to ban the use of facial recognition technology by police forces and city agencies This ban was prompted by concerns that facial recognition technology unfairly targets certain features of community members, especially people of different races. According to CPO, when law enforcement agencies adopt this technology, they typically roll it out in high-crime, low-income neighborhoods that have a high proportion of people of different races.
The ban gives the city's oversight board oversight over all surveillance technologies used by agencies and law enforcement as departments are now required to conduct a review of all existing surveillance technologies, such as automatic license plate identifiers, and write an annual report on how the technology is used and how data is processed. Then the board of directors must approve the purchase of all new monitoring technologies. The ban does not include the use of technology by individuals or companies.
Speaking to NPR, Daniel Castro, vice president of a think-tank called the Foundation for Technology and Innovation, said, “[The Board of Oversight] says, 'Let's ban technology across the board, and that sounds like an extreme decision, because there are so many perfectly appropriate uses for this technology.'" He explains That the government and companies that produce facial recognition software would like to use it to fight sex trafficking, for example. “The complete ban is a very extreme reaction to technology that a lot of people are starting to understand now,” Castro says. There is legislation under consideration similar to that of San Francisco in Oakland, California, and Massachusetts is also considering a ban on facial recognition software in the state until the technology improves. .
Concerns about face-recognition technology are unfounded. In a study published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology earlier this year, researchers at MIT Media Lab found that facial-analyzing software made errors when determining female sex or when recognizing individuals with facial recognition. Dark skin, according to news site The Verge.
The threat posed by some artificial intelligence techniques, especially facial recognition systems, has drawn the attention of some officials in the field and is taking its way to legalize governments and international organizations. necessary tasks.
