Biometric identification uses a person’s physical characteristics to identify them. Biometric identification is uniquely powerful because we often leave traces or expose biometric data when in public spaces, it is personally identifiable information, and it uses features that individuals generally cannot change to avoid surveillance. Biometric identifiers include:
Face prints
Fingerprints
Palm prints
Walking patterns (i.e. gait recognition)
Iris features
Voice prints
DNA
Facial recognition is distinctly dangerous because it is a keystone technology in 21st century mass surveillance. Facial recognition uses algorithms to match a picture of an unknown individual to a gallery of identified images based on facial features like the distance between a person’s eyes. The proliferation of available digital images created by security cameras, added online via social media, or collected by the government for routine purposes (e.g. passport photo) has created a wealth of data to use for face surveillance. And there is a lack of legal protections against the use of images for facial recognition. The result is that the images used to create the underlying algorithms and databases are often collected surreptitiously and without consent.
Facial recognition makes it easy to identify anyone at any time without their consent and even without their knowledge to track the movements of that person or connect that person to the copious amounts of information collected by the government and private sector. The technology also greatly increases the ability to conduct mass surveillance of large crowds. The dangers of facial recognition are growing as its uses expand.
Facial recognition can be used in almost every dimension of life, from banking and commerce to transportation and communications. Law enforcement use of facial recognition is particularly dangerous because it exacerbates protest policing and political repression, over-policing of minority communities, and risk of wrongful identification and wrongful arrest. Commercial facial recognition products are often used by law enforcement, blurring the line between corporations and the government. Clearview AI, for example, stole billions of images from social media sites and built a powerful facial recognition system off those images it sells law enforcement access to.
Credit: Electronic Privacy Information Center
Link: https://epic.org/issues/surveillance-oversight/face-surveillance/