Sydney Register

HELA Block 4
Wilson
February 23, 2016
Facial Recognition Technology
Have you ever felt that there was nothing you could do to protect your privacy except to
never leave your house? Probably not, but that may happen sooner rather than later if something
isn't done about Facial Recognition Technology (FRT). FRT's are a security device used by
government officials to find and investigate suspicious persons or criminals. The technology
matches a face to a database filled with information. This may seem like a great method of crime
prevention, but there are innumerable problems that FRT's cause. There need to be regulations
put on Facial Recognition Technology to stop privacy invasion and racial profiling.
Facial Recognition is growing daily and by next year the government is predicted have
55,000 photo searches per day. "This is a major privacy concern because of FRT's ability to
relentlessly track innocent people." (Pagliery) The current situation takes advantage of grey areas
within the law. The supreme court ruled that finger prints require probable cause to force
individuals to be fingerprinted, but FRT's can be taken without one's knowing. (Steel) FRT's
infringe on American rights . For example, within the first amendment, we are granted the right
to anonymous speech. "The First Amendmentconfirms that the privacy threat posed byFRT
the governments unfettered identification and monitoring of personal associations, speech,
activities, and beliefs, for no justifiable purposeis one of constitutional dimension. In fact, the

Supreme Court has steadfastly protected anonymous speech." (Brown) This means that FRT's
allow the government to monitor one's speeches, activities, beliefs, and more, which is against
the right to anonymous speech. Facial Recognition also incentives officers to ignore probable
cause. " Police officerscan take a scan [that] can be matched to any data base The process
is almost instant." (Ganeva) These practically instant searches are a huge problem because they
can lead the way to racial profiling.
The problem with FRT's regarding racial profiling within FRT's is that the way they are
set up as of right now allows anyone who has access to these databases to do whatever they
want. Currently, there are no consequences or regulations set up. FRT's lack of institutional
checks exasperates racial profiling. It doesn't whether or not officers are being unbiased now
because that may not always be the case. "It's been almost two years since the FBI said they
were going to do an updated privacy assessment, and nothing has occurredCurrently, no
federal laws limit the use of facial-recognition software, either by the private sector or the
government. " (Volz) Because Facial Recognition Technology isn't very accurate, an overwhelming number of false matches could lead to racial profiling. This is because the false
positives switch the burden of identification onto law enforcement. (Volz) FRT's monitor
criminal and noncriminal behavior without any legal boundaries. "The FBI plans to have up to a
third of all Americans on the database by next year. There are currently no federal laws limiting
the use of facial-recognition technology Some 52 million Americans could be on the Next
Generation Identification (NGI) biometric database by 2015, regardless of whether they have
ever committed a crime or been arrested." (Watson) All data is stored on the same database, both
criminal and noncriminal. "This means that even if you have never been arrested for a crime, if
your employer requires you to submit a photo as part of your background check, your face image

could be searched" (Watson) One could be a criminal suspect jut because they have their
image in a noncriminal file. FRT's are predicted to fail up to 20% of the time, but even this
estimate has proven to be conservative. These wrong matches could lead to greater racial
profiling. (Watson) This relatively new technology s something that needs to be controlled before
it gets out of hand.
To every argument, there is a counter-argument. Facial Recognition technology is a form
of surveillance and many would argue that losing privacy is alright as long as they are protected.
The problem with this idea is that FRT are not extremely useful and they fail to protect against
terrorism. They are highly inaccurate and can fail more than 20% of the time. (Watson) Also,
studies have proven the racial minorities do cooperate with the government to fight terrorists.
This is proven in Tom Risen's article about Arab Americans. "The National Security Agency and
the FBI have reportedly been overzealous trying to prevent terrorist attacks to the point that antiIslamic racism in those agencies led to the surveillance of prominent Muslim-Americans,
revealing a culture of racial profiling and broad latitude for spying on U.S. citizens We have
seen very little domestic terrorism in the U.S. This lack of terrorism is due in part to the
willingness of the Islamic community to cooperate with law enforcement to identify possible
radical threats." (Risen) Risen believes that any strengthening of law enforcement could make
Islamic communities feel uncomfortable to go to the police. Others may argue that we don't need
their help and that it's best to keep watch over everyone. After a terrorist attack has been
completed and the dust settles, the first thought through everyone's mind is whether or not any
measure of security could have been done to prevent it. Some, such as Kyle Chayka, believe
regulations on FRT's will hinder their growth and FRT's are not infringing on right anyways. The
private sector is supposedly making sure that abuse will not occur when using FRT's.

"Technology entrepreneurs argue that passing strict laws before face recognition technology
matures will hamper its growth. What I'm worried about is policies being made inappropriately
before their time." (Chayka)
Regulations must be put on Facial Recognition Technology to stop privacy invasion and
racial profiling. Any argument that FRT's are necessary to protect against terrorist attacks can be
refuted because the technology isn't reliable. No one wants to fear that going to the grocery store
could end up with their face being used to find private countless documents. Without any
restrictions, Facial recognition technology poses a serious threat to racial minorities because
these photographs can be taken with consent and/or probable cause. Soon, FRT's will become a
problem too large to handle, so don't brush off this nightmare.

Works Cited
Brown, George Mason. "Anonymity, Faceprints, and the Costitution." Associate Professor of
Law, University of Baltimore School of Law. B.A., Cornell; J.D., University of Michigan, 3
2014.
Chayka, Kyle. "Biometric Surveillance Means Someone Is Always Watching." Newsweek, 25 4
2014.
Ganeva, Tana. "5 unexpected places you can be tracked with facial recognition technology."
AlterNet, 30 August 2011.
Pagliery, Jose. "FBI Launches a Face Recognition System." CNN, 16 9 14.
Risen, Tom. "Racial Profiling Reported in NSA, FBI Surveillance." U.S. News & World Report ,
9 July 2014.
Steel, Emily. "Device raises fear of facial profiling." Wall St. Journal,, 13 July 11.
Volz, Dustin. "Privacy Groups Sound the Alarm Over FBIs Facial-Recognition Technology."
National Journal, 14 June 2014.
Watson, Steve. "OVERWHELMING NUMBER OF FALSE MATCHES TO COME FROM FBI
BIOMETRIC DATABASE." Info Wars, 24 6 14.