Facial recognition software is one of the most hotly debated technological advancements of the 21st century. Major cities around the globe are introducing it to try to stamp out everything from petty crime to global terrorism and it is being used by repressive countries like China for far worse. It is amazing though to see how advanced this technology is becoming but it does worry many around the world about what it could be used for. This debate was recently brought to a head by a most unlikely source: musician Taylor Swift.
Fighting Stalkers
Like many celebrities Taylor Swift has fans, groupies and the much more dangerous stalkers. What could be done about these people has been a question posed by famous people and regular people alike for years. Certainly stalkers are not a new phenomenon (did you know that British author Charles Dickens may have been the first celebrity to have a stalker?) but the Internet age has allowed them to take their obsessions to a new level. Swift is also certainly not the first high-profile musician to experience it. Just ask Britney Spears.
Swift and her security team may be the first to try to be proactive about it using technology. As reported by Rolling Stone Magazine it first began at a kiosk outside of the Rose Bowl in Los Angeles last spring that showed rehearsal clips before her real show. What people didn’t realize was that there were cameras in the kiosk taking the picture of anyone who stopped to look. Those photos were transmitted back to Nashville to a command post where they would be compared to photos of known stalkers of Swift.
The issues with what Swift did
Certainly no one begrudges Taylor Swift of trying to keep herself safe as stalkers can pose a deadly threat to a victim but there are genuine privacy concerns raised by private citizens and groups like the ACLU. What is being done with the pictures after they are compared to the stalkers? Who owns the pictures (since the photos were taken on public property)? How long will the photos be held before being deleted? For the fans of Swift outside of the Rose Bowl there was another issue as they were given no notice that they were being recorded. These are all questions or issue posed and they have not been answered.
The issue is here is not Swift. It is more about the lack of legal definitions for this new technology. There has been almost no legislation offered regarding this new technology which places us in a pretty much an anything goes kind of situation. Hundreds of millions of Americans already have their photos or personal information in some sort of biometric database and outside of the state of Illinois there is little in the way of guidance or hinderance for how this information can be accessed and retained.
The near future of this technology
The next step will be for cameras to be deployed at the entrance gates to catch known stalkers. A startup called Blink Identity claims that it has developed a system that can identify people walking past it in as little as a second and a half. Ticketmaster has invested in the company and is hoping to beta test this at venues sometime this year.
This could also be the way of the future. It could be possible to submit a photo of yourself and use that as your ticket. No more fumbling for a paper stub or waiting to pull it up on your phone. No, your photo gets you in. It has the potential of speeding up the line as well as making a concert venue much safer. This would probably start with VIPs and work its way down to the regular people.
There are also potential issues with safety and abuse. There are of course always issues with false positives. How would the system deal with twins? Would the system be able to look for wanted felons? And perhaps most importantly in today’s age where data breaches are becoming all too common, how safe will your information be, whether you gave it freely or not?
Facial recognition software is here and it will be here to stay. As always it will be employed as a protective measure for public safety but it will be used and abused. There is seemingly little that we can do to prevent this but rules and regulations should be set up before this gets too far off of the ground. Only our elected officials can do this so urge them to draft legislation before we turn into a surveillance state.