Face Recognition Technologies


Book Description

Face recognition technologies (FRTs) have many practical security-related purposes, but advocacy groups and individuals have expressed apprehensions about their use. This report highlights the high-level privacy and bias implications of FRT systems. The authors propose a heuristic with two dimensions -- consent status and comparison type -- to help determine a proposed FRT's level of privacy and accuracy. They also identify privacy and bias concerns.




Biometric Identification, Law and Ethics


Book Description

This book is open access. This book undertakes a multifaceted and integrated examination of biometric identification, including the current state of the technology, how it is being used, the key ethical issues, and the implications for law and regulation. The five chapters examine the main forms of contemporary biometrics–fingerprint recognition, facial recognition and DNA identification– as well the integration of biometric data with other forms of personal data, analyses key ethical concepts in play, including privacy, individual autonomy, collective responsibility, and joint ownership rights, and proposes a raft of principles to guide the regulation of biometrics in liberal democracies. Biometric identification technology is developing rapidly and being implemented more widely, along with other forms of information technology. As products, services and communication moves online, digital identity and security is becoming more important. Biometric identification facilitates this transition. Citizens now use biometrics to access a smartphone or obtain a passport; law enforcement agencies use biometrics in association with CCTV to identify a terrorist in a crowd, or identify a suspect via their fingerprints or DNA; and companies use biometrics to identify their customers and employees. In some cases the use of biometrics is governed by law, in others the technology has developed and been implemented so quickly that, perhaps because it has been viewed as a valuable security enhancement, laws regulating its use have often not been updated to reflect new applications. However, the technology associated with biometrics raises significant ethical problems, including in relation to individual privacy, ownership of biometric data, dual use and, more generally, as is illustrated by the increasing use of biometrics in authoritarian states such as China, the potential for unregulated biometrics to undermine fundamental principles of liberal democracy. Resolving these ethical problems is a vital step towards more effective regulation.




Portraits of Automated Facial Recognition


Book Description

Automated facial recognition algorithms are increasingly intervening in society. This book offers a unique analysis of these algorithms from a critical visual culture studies perspective. The first part of this study examines the example of an early facial recognition algorithm called »eigenface« and traces a history of the merging of statistics and vision. The second part addresses contemporary artistic engagements with facial recognition technology in the work of Thomas Ruff, Zach Blas, and Trevor Paglen. This book argues that we must take a closer look at the technology of automated facial recognition and claims that its forms of representation are embedded with visual politics. Even more significantly, this technology is redefining what it means to see and be seen in the contemporary world.




Handbook of Face Recognition


Book Description

"This authoritative handbook is the first to provide complete coverage of face recognition, including major established approaches, algorithms, systems, databases, evaluation methods, and applications. After a thorough introductory chapter from the editors, 15 chapters address the sub-areas and major components necessary for designing operational face recognition systems. Each chapter focuses on a specific topic, reviewing background information, reviewing up-to-date techniques, presenting results, and offering challenges and future directions." "This accessible, practical reference is an essential resource for scientists and engineers, practitioners, government officials, and students planning to work in image processing, computer vision, biometrics and security, Internet communications, computer graphics, animation, and the computer game industry."--BOOK JACKET.




Biometric Recognition


Book Description

Biometric recognition-the automated recognition of individuals based on their behavioral and biological characteristic-is promoted as a way to help identify terrorists, provide better control of access to physical facilities and financial accounts, and increase the efficiency of access to services and their utilization. Biometric recognition has been applied to identification of criminals, patient tracking in medical informatics, and the personalization of social services, among other things. In spite of substantial effort, however, there remain unresolved questions about the effectiveness and management of systems for biometric recognition, as well as the appropriateness and societal impact of their use. Moreover, the general public has been exposed to biometrics largely as high-technology gadgets in spy thrillers or as fear-instilling instruments of state or corporate surveillance in speculative fiction. Now, as biometric technologies appear poised for broader use, increased concerns about national security and the tracking of individuals as they cross borders have caused passports, visas, and border-crossing records to be linked to biometric data. A focus on fighting insurgencies and terrorism has led to the military deployment of biometric tools to enable recognition of individuals as friend or foe. Commercially, finger-imaging sensors, whose cost and physical size have been reduced, now appear on many laptop personal computers, handheld devices, mobile phones, and other consumer devices. Biometric Recognition: Challenges and Opportunities addresses the issues surrounding broader implementation of this technology, making two main points: first, biometric recognition systems are incredibly complex, and need to be addressed as such. Second, biometric recognition is an inherently probabilistic endeavor. Consequently, even when the technology and the system in which it is embedded are behaving as designed, there is inevitable uncertainty and risk of error. This book elaborates on these themes in detail to provide policy makers, developers, and researchers a comprehensive assessment of biometric recognition that examines current capabilities, future possibilities, and the role of government in technology and system development.




Biometrics


Book Description




Our Biometric Future


Book Description

Since the 1960s, a significant effort has been underway to program computers to “see” the human face—to develop automated systems for identifying faces and distinguishing them from one another—commonly known as Facial Recognition Technology. While computer scientists are developing FRT in order to design more intelligent and interactive machines, businesses and states agencies view the technology as uniquely suited for “smart” surveillance—systems that automate the labor of monitoring in order to increase their efficacy and spread their reach. Tracking this technological pursuit, Our Biometric Future identifies FRT as a prime example of the failed technocratic approach to governance, where new technologies are pursued as shortsighted solutions to complex social problems. Culling news stories, press releases, policy statements, PR kits and other materials, Kelly Gates provides evidence that, instead of providing more security for more people, the pursuit of FRT is being driven by the priorities of corporations, law enforcement and state security agencies, all convinced of the technology’s necessity and unhindered by its complicated and potentially destructive social consequences. By focusing on the politics of developing and deploying these technologies, Our Biometric Future argues not for the inevitability of a particular technological future, but for its profound contingency and contestability.




Surveillance State


Book Description

Where is the line between digital utopia and digital police state? Surveillance State tells the gripping, startling, and detailed story of how China’s Communist Party is building a new kind of political control: shaping the will of the people through the sophisticated—and often brutal—harnessing of data. It is a story born in Silicon Valley and America’s “War on Terror,” and now playing out in alarming ways on China’s remote Central Asian frontier. As ethnic minorities in a border region strain against Party control, China’s leaders have built a dystopian police state that keeps millions under the constant gaze of security forces armed with AI. But across the country in the city of Hangzhou, the government is weaving a digital utopia, where technology helps optimize everything from traffic patterns to food safety to emergency response. Award-winning journalists Josh Chin and Liza Lin take readers on a journey through the new world China is building within its borders, and beyond. Telling harrowing stories of the people and families affected by the Party’s ambitions, Surveillance State reveals a future that is already underway—a new society engineered around the power of digital surveillance.




Privacy, Technology, and the Criminal Process


Book Description

This collection considers the implications for privacy of the utilisation of new technologies in the criminal process. In most modern liberal democratic states, privacy is considered a basic right. Many national constitutions, and almost all international human rights instruments, include some guarantee of privacy. Yet privacy interests appear to have had relatively little influence on criminal justice policy making. The threat that technology poses to these interests demands critical re-evaluation of current law, policy, and practice. This is provided by the contributions to this volume. They offer legal, criminological, philosophical and comparative perspectives. The book will be of interest to legal and criminological scholars and postgraduate students. Its interdisciplinary methodology and focus on the intersection between law and technology make it also relevant for philosophers, and those interested in science and technology studies.




Issues with Facial Recognition Technology


Book Description

Automated facial recognition systems compare two or more images of faces to determine whether they represent the same individual. Facial recognition technology (FRT) falls within the larger categories of biometric technology used to varying degrees by the government and private entities to identify persons. This book deals with some of the issues concerning facial recognition technology.