Facebook: Facial Recognition

“I updated my grilling app, iGrill, today and it now has Facebook integration that lets you see what other people are grilling right now around the world. Awesome.”
Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook: Facial Recognition

It is also called Faceprinting. Today, I turned off the feature in my Facebook account. But, I know that it is also inevitable that this technology will soon be used everywhere. When Facebook started this, the switch was “on” so you are probably on right now.

It sounds like a good idea. I tag my own photo and Facebook scans my features. With enough data it can find me when someone else puts a photo of me up on their site and I get a notice. I can find old friends from high school.

Apple is using facial recognition to unlock their phones and for payments. The phone can read your face, even in the dark with sunglasses, and let you use your own phone or agree to a payment. It is much better than a fingerprint, they tell us.

It is not just a photo, a camera can read your face from a distance and know that it is you and line up all of your known information; education, dollars, likes, politics, dreams and, hopefully, if you are a criminal? Maybe. The idea of privacy is out the door.

I might like the idea of going to Sears and a camera scans my face as I enter. The salesman knows that I’m probably looking for jeans, a tape measure and a washing machine. He also knows what I can afford. My needs are met almost instantly and the odds of me impulse buying a lazy-boy chair are lessened.

China is using facial recognition software on all of the cameras on the streets. And they have sunglasses equipped on the police that can scan people, just like Robocop or the Terminator! A British reporter featured the technology with the Chinese government and pretended to commit a crime. They caught him in seven minutes.

It can all work great and will soon be a normal fact of our lives. Not only the police and all of the governments but also grocery stores and ball parks and the mafia will all have these powers. There is no escaping it, even in Cancun. The possibility, in my opinion, of abuse is astronomical.

So, you can’t stop a tidal wave.

But, you can get your nose broken in three places. I doubt that it would work, but it might in the early stages of this technology.

Really, when does paranoia become common sense? 87 million people scoffed and their data is now in anyone’s hands who wants it. Should I go down with the ship or fight for freedom with every breath?