Even as it depresses economies across the world, the coronavirus pandemic has sparked a new period of growth and development for facial recognition technology. Once we open Pandora’s box, can we force it shut again?

1. COULD COVID-19 KICKSTART
SURVEILLANCE CULTURE?
bennat berger

2. Even as it depresses economies across the world, the
coronavirus pandemic has sparked a new period of growth
and development for facial recognition technology. Creators
pitch their tools as a means to identify sick individuals
without risking close-contact investigation.

3. The marketing pitch is
tempting in these anxious,
fearful times. But in practice,
using facial recognition to
track the coronavirus can be
downright terrifying. Take
Russia as an example -
- according to reports from
BBC, city officials in Moscow
have begun leveraging the
city’s massive network of
cameras to keep track of
residents during the
pandemic lockdown.

4. In desperate times like these, the knee-jerk suspicion that we
typically hold towards invasive technology wavers. We think
that maybe, just this once, it might be okay to accept facial
recognition surveillance -- provided, of course, that we can
slam the door on it when the world returns to normal. But can
we? Once we open Pandora’s box, can we force it shut again?

5. In January, an exposé published by the
New York Times revealed that a startup
called Clearview AI had quietly developed
a facial recognition app capable of
matching unknown subjects to their
online images and profiles -- and
promptly peddled it to over 600 law
enforcement agencies without any public
scrutiny or oversight. Clearview stands as
a precursor, a budding example of what
surveillance culture in America could look
like, if left unregulated.

6. If facial recognition technology will
lead to a surveillance-state
dystopia, shouldn’t we at least try
to slow its forward momentum?
Shouldn’t we at least consider the
dangers that a dystopia might pose
-- especially during times like these,
when privacy-eroding technology
feels like a viable weapon against a
global pandemic?

7. It is worth noting that dozens of police departments across
the country already use products with facial recognition
capabilities. One report on the United States’ facial
recognition market found that the industry is expected to
grow from $3.2 billion in 2019 to $7.0 billion by 2024. The
Washington Post further reports that the FBI alone
has conducted over 390,000 facial-recognition searches
across federal and local databases since 2011.

8. Unlike DNA evidence, facial recognition technology is usually
relatively cheap and quick to use, lending itself easily to
everyday use. It stands to reason that if better technology is
made available, usage by public agencies will become even
more commonplace. We need to keep this slippery slope in
mind. During a pandemic, we might welcome tools that allow
us to track and slow the spread of disease and overlook the
dangerous precedent they set in the long-term.

9. Given all of this, it seems that we should, at the very least,
avoid panic-prompted decisions to allow facial recognition
-- and instead, consider what we can do to avoid the
slippery slope that facial recognition technology poses.

10. Moreover, facial recognition software is notorious for
its inaccuracy. One new federal study found that
people of color, women, older subjects, and children
faced higher misidentification rates than white men.

11. “One false match can lead to missed flights,
lengthy interrogations, tense police
encounters, false arrests, or worse,” Jay
Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), told
the Washington Post. “But the technology’s
flaws are only one concern. Face recognition
technology — accurate or not — can enable
undetectable, persistent, and suspicionless
surveillance on an unprecedented scale.”

12. The proliferation of facial recognition
technology is inevitable. But that doesn’t
mean that we should give up on bans
and protective measures. Instead, we
should pursue them further and slow
the momentum as much as we can -- if
only to give ourselves time to establish
regulations, rules, and protections.

13. We can’t give in to short-term
thinking; we can’t start down the
slippery slope towards surveillance
culture without considering the
potential consequences.
Otherwise, we may well find that
the “cure” that facial recognition
promises is, in the long term, far
worse than any short-term panic.

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Bennat Berger on Hackernoon.com