Two seemingly disparate articles touch on the value of our faces and technology’s ability to use them.
Facial recognition is now being used by police forces to track individuals in public places. If Facebook can do it, why not governments?
“A police department in China went from capturing a handful of suspects a year with officers watching CCTV cameras to capturing 69 suspects in one month” – MIT Technology Review
Technology is also swapping peoples’ faces in videos. Doing so in still photos was relatively easy, but doing so in videos was considered too technically intensive, until now. People are finding their faces superimposed on those of actors in movies. While this may be handy when managing casting, it also means a new level for revenge porn, and threats to the reputations of politicians and celebrities.
“Face-swap porn may be deeply, personally humiliating for the people whose likeness is used, but it’s technically not a privacy issue. ” – Wired
Both technologies are new enough that standards and laws haven’t been established and tested, which means they are allowed to operate, for now. Combine the two and innocence is threatened, misunderstandings multiply, and yet another aspect of society advances faster than the law.
“China’s Facial-Recognition Startups Can Probably Pick You Out Of A Crowd” – MIT Technology Review
Pretending Not To Panic 