As a rule, new technologies usually become more popular when they
become more advanced, but not so for facial recognition. The technology is both
more
effective than ever, and also facing a
growing backlash from consumers, activists, and lawmakers at the state and federal levels. Concerns about
facial recognition are understandable, but they’re often expressed with no
small measure of hypocrisy. That’s because, statistically speaking, there is
almost certainly a tremendous overlap between those who fight to ban the
technology today, and the hundreds of millions of smartphone and social media
users who enjoy using facial recognition technology in their day-to-day lives.

Every time we unlock our phones with little more than a glance,
every time Facebook sends us a delightful, auto-generated video highlighting
our years-long relationships with friends and family, we’re endorsing the use
of facial recognition technology. Unfortunately, there’s no taking the good
without the bad. As long as tech companies continue to use facial recognition
technology for lighthearted, non-threatening purposes, it’s more than likely
that some entity will use those same capabilities for nefarious purposes as
well.

The history of technology has shown us time and time again that
you simply cannot put the genie back in the bottle. And when it comes to facial
recognition, we should not ignore the many potential benefits it may provide to
law enforcement and other security organizations. If the technology exists,
then it can and will be abused. Rather than enact meaningless “bans” that will
likely do nothing to impede the abuse of facial recognition technology, it’s
time that we confront the evolving definition of privacy in our digital age,
and devise new systems to ensure that such abuse is rare, difficult, and
costly. 

A Very Real Threat

Activists who oppose the use of facial recognition technology have
good reasons to do so. The fact is, the proliferation of facial recognition
technology does reduce our privacy. It does reduce our ability to
move through the world anonymously. 

Despite recent advances, facial recognition technology also
remains very much in its infancy. The technology still has the potential to
produce false positives, and the nature of the criminal databases it relies on
for use in law enforcement makes algorithmic bias a serious concern. (For
example, because racial minorities are statistically more likely to be
arrested, racial minorities are also more likely to be a near match to someone
in any given database of police mugshots.)

However, all technologies have the potential to be abused. Simply
banning facial recognition technology invites us to continue ignoring the many
ways in which it has already impinged upon our right to privacy and anonymity.
Worse—banning the technology deprives us of the opportunity to build meaningful
regulations, incentives, and punishments governing its misuse. And it’s all but
inevitable that some misuse will occur, regardless of whether prohibitions are
put in place. 

Unringing The Bell

Modern history is filled with examples of leaders, industries, and governments who have tried—and failed—to ban the use of new technologies. For everyday consumers, the most familiar example comes from the aviation industry and its long tradition of prohibiting the use of various devices on airplanes—from the radio cassette recorder to the mobile phone. Similarly, the US government has now spent the better part of 30 years attempting to stamp out music, film, and other media piracy through legislation. In both cases, humanity’s propensity for subterfuge and creative rule-breaking has far outstripped organized efforts to curb the use of these technologies.

Of course, facial recognition is a far more serious subject, with
far more dire potential ramifications, than the years-long fight over “airplane
mode” and music piracy. Yet even when examining the history of technological
bans in the context of weightier issues like censorship and government
surveillance, the fact remains that technology bans simply do not work.
Contemporary global politics offers many examples of governments that actively
work to prevent their citizens from accessing specific
parts of the internet, or using particular devices. But from China to North
Korea,
there are always counterexamples of citizens finding a way around those
prohibitions. 

Even when governments place self-imposed technology bans on themselves, they fail to uphold them. For example, one could argue that the 4th Amendment of the U.S. constitution has “banned” the use of technology for warrantless spying for over 230 years. However, that hasn’t prevented a century of illegal US government mass surveillance programs—from the FBI’s cold war-era COINTELPRO domestic intelligence program to the NSA’s ongoing PRISM internet surveillance initiative. 

The Battle For Privacy

Those who fear that facial recognition technology will forever change
our definition of privacy and possibly erase the very concept of anonymity
simply haven’t been paying close enough attention. Those changes have long been
underway. For most of us, our participation in a society powered by digital
technology and networked communications means that we will never have access to
the sort of privacy that was more widely available just two or three decades
ago. 

Every day, we allow our phones to track our movements, upload
tagged photos of ourselves to social media platforms, and send our credit card
numbers and other financial information zipping around insecure e-commerce
platforms. We ignore these invisible privacy threats, yet latch on to facial
recognition precisely because it is so deeply intertwined with our own
visibility, and thus makes us feel especially vulnerable.  

However, embracing facial recognition technology today could
facilitate much-needed conversations about the state of privacy in our rapidly
evolving digital landscape. The time is long overdue for our society to create
a new framework of human rights concerning privacy in the digital era. Concerns
around facial recognition may be just the impetus we need to do so.  

Embracing The Good

Until that conversation takes place, it’s worth taking a moment to
consider facial recognition technology in terms of its enormous potential for
good. While the technology is far from being advanced enough to provide
admissible evidence, it has given law enforcement officials powerful new
investigative tools for beginning their searches and narrowing down suspects.
In fact, facial recognition technology recently facilitated the
apprehension of a violent murder suspect in China.

Ultimately, the benefits of facial recognition technology may be
well worth the risks. Then again, perhaps the technology is so ripe for misuse
that it should be stripped from even our smartphones and social
platforms—restricted to all but the most senior law enforcement officials.
Either way, the sweeping, premature prohibitions being proposed today could
prevent us from ever finding out for sure. And in the end, it will be much
better to engage with these questions head on, rather than sweep them under the
rug.

Lee Reiber, COO of Oxygen Forensics