Who does your face belong to? Of course, a silly question… right?
But what about the data generated from your face? And what does it mean for your face to become data?
There is already a lot of data on millions of faces. We have offered our faces on social networks and in photos stored in the cloud.
But we have not yet determined who owns the data associated with the contours of our faces.
In the era of great technologies, we have to reflect on the expectations that we can and should have about who has access to our faces.
The recent riots in the United States Capitol have put the issue in the spotlight, since facial recognition becomes a vital tool to identify those who participated in the protest:
What is the power of facial recognition technology? Are we ready to take it?
Even before the riots, facial recognition technology was being used in many ways that we probably haven’t considered seriously enough, and many of us have voluntarily contributed to generating data about our faces, either explicitly or implicitly.
Facial recognition technology, for example, is very present in public spaces.
When deciding on the use of this technology to ensure compliance with the law, for surveillance or for other initiatives with clear social purposes, we must stop and ask ourselves: what are the costs of losing our faces in favor of data?
The consequences are serious, including for the right to privacy and our ability to live without surveillance.
Track our movements
In Belgrade, according to reports and a video of the NGO SHARE Foundation, conducted in support of its #hiljadekamera (thousands of cameras) initiative, will deploy high-definition cameras for various surveillance functions.
SHARE Director Danilo Krivokapić says that the facial recognition technology of those cameras will track the movements of individuals when they wander through the city Serbia.
The photos that already exist in the system are compared with the data captured by the cameras and then analyzed by an artificial intelligence system .
This technology opens the possibility of tracking the movements of a person in real time while moving around Belgrade. And it’s not the only place where it happens.
Governments and surveillance go hand in hand, and facial recognition technology gives them more options and ways to track and restrict the movement of people. people within its borders.
Many are against the deployment of this technology in the streets.
The city of London decided last year to deploy cameras with facial recognition capabilities alongside its 627, 727 CCTV cameras. The measure sparked protests.
Businesses also employ it
And it’s not just governments who want your face.
Last year, Cadillac Fairview, one of the largest commercial real estate companies in North America, was denounced by the Office from the Privacy Commissioner of Canada for installing discreet cameras in 12 of its shopping malls, including Toronto’s iconic Eaton Center.
These cameras captured five million customer images and used a facial recognition software that generated more data, including gender and age.
Although the images were deleted, the data generated from them was kept on a server by a third party.
In response to the report by the privacy commissioner, New Democracy party deputy Charlie Angus stated: “We have the right to go to public places without being photographed, tracked and put in machines monitoring data, either for companies or for the police and government.”
Unfortunately, Angus is wrong: there is no such right.
And since Cadillac Fairview did not keep the photos, but with the data of the faces that appeared in the photos, the problem is consent , not the violation of the right to privacy.
What rights do we have when we offer our faces to dataification?
Journalist Rebecca Heilweil documents the many ways in which we introduce technology ology of facial recognition in our lives.
Many are familiar with Facebook’s photo tagging technology, which tags not just your face, but other people in your Photos.
This technology is also present in the Google and Apple photo apps.
But this type of recognition technology facial is spreading to other areas.
For example, the automaker Subaru deploys it to detect distractions behind the wheel.
Apple offers functionalities called HomeKit that cross the data collected from various devices and uses facial recognition to tell you if a friend, recognized by your photos, is at the door.
Google’s Nest Hub Max uses the technology of facial recognition to literally look for you; in the same way that you are always listening for the words: “OK, Google.”
And Hirevue uses artificial intelligence to evaluate the images of potential employees and decide on their suitability and probability of success.
Fundamental part of who we are
The human face is one of the most basic things that young children recognize and learn, as their brains order the world.
It is a fundamental part of who we are as a species, its importance is such that it can hardly be expressed in words.
Is the data associated with that face -that is, the digital representation of your face from your real face or your photos- part of this The fundamental essence of you that you want to safeguard for yourself?
Or is that a naive hope in our world of data?
What we leads back to the US Capitol uprising.
Certainly it is fair that facial recognition technology is used to drive white supremacists before justice. But at what price?
We know the biases of the existing data against people of color, women and people with low incomes.
We know that the police using this biased data in the name of algorithmic surveillance, which has led to harassment of those challenged communities and unfair arrests of black people.
There is a lot in game, not only for law enforcement agencies, but for our right to privacy as individuals.
Our expectations about data collection and privacy do not conform to what the reality is collection and storage of data, whether facial or not.
That is why it is important to consider our rights in their appropriate context.
Our personal data is They have collected and are collected every day at an amazing rate.
This is causing a fundamental change not only in economic and ethical terms, but in the way we live as human beings.
Our understanding of human rights and the corresponding laws to protect them need to be reset to take into account the changes that are taking place in the way our data is collected.
*Wendy H. Wong is Professor of Political Science, University of Toronto
This note originally appeared on The Conversation and is published here under a Creative Commons license..