Facial recognition: It’s time for action

Kind of squirrely phrasing going on here. "If they believe some other nations are threatening their own ideology, the should build defense or sometimes offenses to counter that."

They "believe" their ideology is threatened--so it's okay to clamp down on their own citizens, representing over a billion human beings, censor and intercept all communications, edit out government atrocities and historical facts like Tienanmen square, and spy on every citizen on a profound and constant panopticon level? This isn't about western or eastern perspective. This kind of philosophy justifies the actions of any dictator or autocratic fascist. This whole obsession with a perceived national threat is the prod that pushes through all sorts of oppressive policies.

We in the west also have severe problems with this. The whole post-9/11 mentality has been all about yielding personal dignity and rights and basic privacy for the sake of assuaging some vague (and mostly imaginary) threat. We also are building a massive panopticon, we just aren't as far along as China is at the moment, and our machinations of totalitarianism are privatized instead of powered by the state. We should pay very close attention to what's going on in that culture, because we may need those lessons sooner than we think in our own future--even if they come in a slightly different form.

Political neutral doesn't exist. Regulation invades freedom of corporations. I support that, but I'm also left of the center. (For some definition of left and some definition of center)

Biometrics are creeping into everyday life. One of my local gyms this week switched to requiring fingerprints or you were barred from access. Another local gym uses facial recognition for entrance, although you can choose to have a member card instead if you ask for it directly, they don't list it as an option.

Thankfully in the EU we have GDPR. It considers biometrics as a similar sensitivity to medical data, so unless you genuinely need it (maybe a hospital) then you can only get it with explicit consent. If consent is not given then that can not bar you from service.

So I reported a company to the ICO this week for the introduction of fingerprint scanners and was assured they consider it was a breach and will deal with them. GDPR isn't perfect and I think defaulting to consent is wrong and alternatives must be called out but you can't help people sleeping walking into it, it is very convenient.

Wow. What a load of bullshit. They take every consumer level fear and exaggerate it to a ridiculous extent. "Problems that need to be addressed" is simply hand waving a fear flag. Likewise, in "Addressing bias and discrimination": if an implementation violates discrimination laws, it's use is already illegal. Additionally, "error rates" are expected: the whole idea is to "help identify", not be the absolute authority on identity. The technology is not designed for that. The "demand" for transparency and testing is already being supplied - the customers require such information, because they need to know to securely use the systems.

This article is so full of bullshit, it could only be written by a master manipulator. In "Protecting democratic freedoms and human rights" the prose is pointing out some practical issues, but glorifying them to fantasy fear levels.

Facial recognition is not an authoritative technology, never was, never will be. 90% of this article falls apart when it is pointed out that FR does not have authentication integrity, and anyone expecting such or trying to regulate it as such is talking nonsense.

> If consent is not given then that can not bar you from service.

But they probably can increase the price to cover "administrative costs/..."