The Future of Facial Recognition and Privacy
Could Privacy be a Thing of the Past?
Until the last few decades, the only thing infringing upon our privacy (technology-wise) were CCTV cameras and to an extent, radios. Then came the wave of social-media driven technology stuck in an ever-perpetuating amplification path.
Let’s cut to the chase, and bypass everything that led up to the rise of facial recognition technology and its use in mainstream enterprise uses. As with every breakthrough technology, the curiosity to elevate it to new heights is too oft a beckoning siren song.
Amazon ReKognition
It makes sense to start this off with one of the largest tech behemoths in the modern world. Especially, since they are far off from their competitors by any measure. First, let’s dive into what it is actually.
Amazon’s facial technology is a Deep Learning-Based Image Matching service that is able to identify people, objects, places, content, and much more against a database.
Mission
Amazon’s mission value proposition was that it would have the potential to greatly increase efficiency and public safety as well.
The U.S. Customs has already implemented this technology in Atlanta and when passengers use this facial recognition process, it is able to shave off 9 minutes out of the boarding process so that people can board their planes faster. In the business world; saving 9 minutes sounds like heaven.
In addition, in 2018, The CBP (Customs and Border Protection) agents used the new facial recognition technology to arrest a man attempting to enter the country illegally as he had been in possession of a passport that didn’t belong to him. The system basically compared the photos in the passports to the people presenting the passports and was able to identify the mismatch.
No doubt the latter example will give rise to the government favoring the use of the technology in these situations.
Expansion
As early as 2017, Amazon’s software was able to integrate real-time face recognition and detection, especially among crowded and busy streets. In addition, it can even moderate images in real-time.
This was due to the demand of enterprises to be able to recognize text embedded in images like license plates, street signs, news, etc. For instance, in image sharing, you are now able to execute a visual search based on an index of images containing the same keywords — same thing with media. Hear it from Pinterest themselves:
“As a visually-driven platform, Pinterest relies heavily on the speed and quality of images, but the text behind those images is just as important, as it provides context and makes Pins actionable for our 200M+ active Pinners. In working with Amazon Rekognition Text in Image, we can better extract the rich text captured in images at scale and with low latency for the millions of Pins stored in Amazon S3. We look forward to continuing to develop the partnership with AWS for high quality and fast experiences for Pinners and businesses on Pinterest.” — Vanja Josifovski, CTO, Pinterest
Treading Carefully
This is where things start to get edgy. It can be argued that we are crossing a line to which we will not be able to return.
In Mid 2018, the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) tested Amazon’s technology on members of Congress. “The software incorrectly matching 28 members of Congress, identifying them as other people who have been arrested of a crime.” The worst part was, that these false matches were disproportionately of people of color. Which brings us to the concern regarding the negative effects and/or consequences this may bring upon minorities. Indeed, precisely that was handwritten to Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, regarding these concerns.
Which brings us to even more frightening consequences. Amazon has bigger prospects on the horizon to whom they are in the business of selling their proprietary software. The Police.
They have been working with Police Departments in Orlando, FL and and Washington County, Oregon. They call it “Supercharged Surveillance” (Completely harmless name right?). There are already three surveillance cameras in Orlando that have already been implemented, despite contradictory claims from police Chief John Mina, who at one point insisted they were just in “testing”. Amazon and the Chief himself later confirmed that they misspoke.
Using this software, law enforcement will be able to identify persons of interest amongst a database of faces in real-time. They claim that that through this technology they will be able to crack cold cases significantly faster, more accurately, and efficiently.
To make things even worse, Amazon is even pushing to sell the facial recognition software to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). You can probably guess what a disaster that will be, especially in the early stages.
A Silver Lining
Enter D-ID, a startup from Tel Aviv. After realizing the implications of where this technology could lead to in the future, the startup has developed a revolutionary software that aims to block facial recognition algorithms from “reading” any photos or videos. In the world of data protection, they have managed to breakthrough with a new type of “de-identification”, which has two aims:
- Protect data that is already being used for authentication
- Never let that data get read in the first place
The way it does this is by “playing on the gap between the brain and human eye and what the machine understands”, as Gil Perry, CEO and co-founder, describes it. Basically what this means is that the pictures will look the same to the naked eye, however the algorithm is able to make small, subtle, imperceptible changes to the image, essentially “scrambling it”, that it will no longer be recognized by a facial recognition algorithm. It brings anonymity to a whole different level.
The Need for Regulation
Given that Amazon ReKognition clearly has flaws, putting aside the ethical concerns of privacy, it is especially dangerous to implement this technology especially for the safety of minorities given the abysmal results from the ACLU test of the technology.
The ACLU fortunately, has been fighting hard at every step to stop this potentially dangerous technology to fall into an organization where some bad eggs will attempt to manipulate it at the cost of other’s lives. In this case, if it starts spreading rampant, it will be a snowball effect where it won’t be able to be stopped.
Before we become like China, where they are under constant surveillance and seem to not care as well, it is imperative that we have a discussion amongst governments, corporations, legislative councils, and most importantly — the people.
Sources
- https://www.cbsnews.com/news/customs-and-border-protection-use-facial-recognition-to-arrest-man-trying-to-enter-u-s-illegally/
- https://www.cbsnews.com/news/delta-americas-first-biometric-facial-recognition-airport-terminal/
- https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/breaking-news/os-amazon-orlando-police-cameras-downtown-20180524-story.html
- https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2017/11/amazon-rekognition-announces-real-time-face-recognition-text-in-image-recognition-and-improved-face-detection/
- https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-technology/surveillance-technologies/amazons-face-recognition-falsely-matched-28
- https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2019/02/improved-content-moderation-is-now-available-for-amazon-Rekognition-video/
- https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/22/d-id-nabs-4m-to-protect-images-from-being-read-by-facial-recognition-algorithms/
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