Loss of Privacy

Carnegie Mellon researchers have created several different ways to use facial recognition technology in an effort to show how the world could be without anonymity.

Alessandro Acquisti, an associate professor of information technology and public policy, created an experimental smart phone application that is capable of snapping a photograph of a stranger’s face in order to produce that individual’s social security number.

Once the photograph is taken, new technologies then match that person’s face with pictures from Facebook. This new use of facial recognition will have further privacy implications.

Across campus, students at the CyLab Biometrics Centre are developing facial recognition hardware and software to assist police and military in identifying criminals.

While identifying criminals is a good thing, doing it at the expense of a population’s privacy and civil rights is not the approach to take. With the increasing use of cloud-based facial recognition, even when people take precautions to hide their identity, once you leave the house, you are no longer in control of who sees you and what they do with your information. You can’t change your face. If someone takes your photograph without your permission and places it online, you have little recourse what happens next.

Once facial recognition technologies are perfected, it will leave the world of academics and be used everywhere, and not just for legitimate reasons. When this occurs, expect everyone to start learning how to use facial camouflage.

via cnet.

No, this is the old Soviet Union, though the KGB would have loved this new machine. Russia is testing a new ATM that has a lie detector built-in. It is hoped that it will be able to prevent fraud.

Consumers with no previous relationship with the bank could talk to the machine to apply for a credit card, with no human intervention required on the bank’s end.

The machine scans a passport, records fingerprints and takes a three-dimensional scan for facial recognition. And it uses voice-analysis software to help assess whether the person is truthfully answering questions that include “Are you employed?” and “At this moment, do you have any other outstanding loans?”

The big bank involved, Sberbank, whose majority owner is the Russian government, said it intended to install the new machines in malls and bank branches around the country eventually, but had not yet scheduled the rollout. Technology consultants say the machines, if they go into commercial use, would be the banking world’s first use of voice analysis in A.T.M.’s.

Although most Russians are used to and expect this kind of intrusiveness from the government, most people in the West will see these machines as a massive invasion of privacy. Indeed. Who would want to give up so much information to a machine?

A prototype of the machine is on display at Sberbank’s Branch of the Future laboratory in a nondescript office building above a Moscow subway station.

The lab bristles with biometric surveillance technology. When a person walks in, a facial-recognition camera takes note, and an artificial voice cheerily greets known customers. Or, more often, it utters a glum, “Hello, you are not registered,” because only a few of the lab’s staff members have had their faces scanned so far.

Sberbank says that to comply with the part of the privacy law that would prohibit a company from keeping a database of customers’ voice signatures, the bank plans to store customers’ voice prints on chips contained in their credit cards.

Oy vey! What kind of person so readily gives up so many biometric identifiers? In one fail swoop, it gets your passport information, fingerprints, facial scan, voice and video samples, credit card information, and banking information. No thank you.

One of the many reasons people leave Facebook is that it constantly changes its privacy conditions, forcing users to continuously monitor their accounts. Recently, Facebook has turned on their facial recognition for photographs without notifying anyone, leaving many users scrambling to find out how to turn it off. Originally turned on for Americans last December, facial recognition was recently turned on worldwide, angering European users who do not necessarily want such a feature turned on by default.

Read the rest of my article at The Daily Censored.