Just a nameless face in the crowd

What ingredients would be needed for the most powerful facial recognition tool? Hardware, software, and data; as in lots of high definition cameras that are all interconnected and easily accessible in real time, a robust facial recognition software that can automatically process each face it sees, and a database with multiple images of each person tagged with their name. If you have all of this then it’s not too hard to imagine a world where every person could be tracked almost anywhere all the time. Thankfully we aren’t there yet, one of the biggest hurdles is that these cameras are not interconnected and not easily accessible in real time. However some of the other ingredients are getting prepped for a possible recipe for disaster. More and more high definition cameras are being installed both inside and around our homes by homeowners, inside many buildings by businesses, and outside including at most traffic lights by government. Powerful facial recognition software already exists and Facebook alone has a database of billions of photos where each face is tagged with a name. Hopefully we decide as a society to safeguard our privacy, but if not maybe future generations will never be able to be “just a nameless face in the crowd”.