Is Facial Recognition Software the Way of the Future?

A facial recognition system is a computer application for identifying or verifying a person from a digital image or video frame from a video source. One of the ways to do this is by comparing selected facial features from the image and a facial database. A good example of this would be on Facebook. Anytime you add a photo, Facebook tries to identify the people in the photo based upon past photos in their system. Face recognition and detection technology is becoming cheaper, faster, and much more commonplace, raising the question of whether people will be able to remain anonymous in the near future. Digital signs and sensors that detect and recognize faces are no longer a matter of science fiction. They are real and are popping up everywhere. So what's protecting you from Big Brother tracking your movements and invading your privacy? As of right now, technology is the only significant barrier. Facial recognition software is not perfect and struggles to perform under different conditions. Right now it is able to identify a person from a full frontal face view but not a profile. In addition, if the person is wearing sunglasses, a hat or any other obstructive devices, the software does not work well. Take for instance an image or video capturing a robbery in progress. If the robber is wearing a hat, glasses or any other covering, the software is probably not going to be able to identify him/her. Today, the technology is not quite robust enough to snap a photo of someone on the street and instantly know who they are. Computer processors aren't fast enough to scan across billions of images in real time to match an offline face to an online photograph – no matter what you see on NCIS. But that's coming soon. Today, to match two photos of people in the United States in real time would take four hours. That's too long to do in real time. But assuming a steady improvement in cloud computing time, we can soon get much closer to that reality than many of us believed. When facial recognition software is paired with social media profiles (think Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+), they sky could be the limit. A research team at Carnegie Mellon has already developed a proof-of-concept iPhone application that can snap a photo of a person and within seconds display their name, date of birth and social security number. Though computers still have difficulty identifying faces in low light or poor photo quality, programs are now able to capture a profile of a face, build a 3D model of it, rotate the photo and identify the person the face belongs to. Some states are now requiring photo driver license to have more than one photo – one with a straight face and one with a smile. This will help in facial recognition in the future. What about protecting your privacy? If the advances in facial recognition software are right around the corner, what will stop advertisers or even the government from putting names to previously anonymous faces of people walking into a store, strolling down the street or protesting a convention? Last month, the FTC held a conference to come up with some answers. As of right now, the answer is industry self-regulation. We all know how it goes with “self-regulation”. Companies will take it upon themselves to come up with guidelines that will supposedly give a person a chance to opt-in for this new technology. Why would anyone in their right mind “opt-in” to being part of the facial recognition conundrum? According to The Digital Signage Federation, a consortium of companies operating digital signs that detect or recognize faces, that "opt-in" option can be made as simply as walking into a store that posts on its window that it detects faces. Have you been looking for these signs on store windows? I know I haven’t before but I will now! Privacy advocates and lawyers representing face recognition companies agreed that the kinks need to be worked out of the system. As of today, no laws or regulations specifically prevent your face from being detected or recognized without your consent. However, even today, smartphones have the ability to match up a photo of a person with their social media. In my area, if you attend a sporting event, the stadium has the ability to capture and identify every person in attendance by use of a FanCam. Is our world ready for facial recognition? I would say that it will still be some time before privacy laws catch up with technology. So what can we do in the meantime? Should we just avoid the stores that have signs in the window indicating that facial recognition software is in place? What about walking down the street? Or driving in your car? What about walking out of your house to pick up the paper? Cameras seem to be everywhere these days and it is hard to go anywhere without being captured on some type of system. It seems that there really is no way to protect yourself from this technology other than wearing a disguise all of the time! And what about your favorite store? Should you shun it because it uses this technology? Who knows, maybe in a few years, when you walk into the store, you will have the option between a facial recognition line and a non-facial recognition line just like you have (had) the option for a smoking or non-smoking section in a restaurant. What about a "do not track" registry of faces? Seriously, why would anyone take a picture of themselves and submit it to any agency indicating they want to “opt-out”? "Wear a mask," said John Verdi, senior counsel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. I have to say that truly is a scary thought!