Facial Recognition: Public Enemy Number One?

Not long ago, I had a conversation with a colleague regarding facial recognition technology application within law enforcement. I was curious, is the push back against the technology based in an anti-police ideology or is it something else, I asked. The response to my question was the concern about the technology was founded more on privacy preservation and protections beliefs. 

When we examine our fears, we should be able to disseminate between actual, perceived, conditioned and phobic fears. How we respond to fears allows or prevents us from functioning in the world. In a hyper-political society, fear narratives are increasingly common. We are presented with phrases which elevate an issue perhaps past its relative concern. In so many ways, the objective of a “narrative” is to manipulate the mind of a reader than it is to inform.

This morning, one of my many news feeds reported on a consortium of advocacy organizations seeking to ban facial recognition. In their website, facial recognition technology is equated to nuclear or biological weapons. 

I would like to think this was hyperbole, but I don’t believe it was. Nonetheless, the extreme nature of those assertions stunned me. The misinformation which followed was equally stunning. All of this left me believing that concerns about facial recognition or law enforcement surveillance extends past privacy rights and into a world of fear mongering or a deeper level agenda.

We live in a world in which the most extreme arguments resonate the most and often they serve to evoke an emotional response. So, IS facial recognition the most dangerous technology compared to nuclear and biological weapons? I’m not buying their argument and here’s why.

First, I need to add, I am not an advocate for the use of facial recognition within law enforcement and truth be told, I am somewhat agnostic on the subject. I do see value in technology being made available to public safety agencies if that technology improves safety and security, thwarts crime without violating rights and promotes efficiency equally with effectiveness. My issue, in large measure, is the level of manipulation and fear baiting, with limited facts or actual research, being used by groups to influence public policy.

Privacy advocacy has a blind spot in its selectivity. 

This isn’t a universal blind spot as many purists apply their ideology and positions beyond the nature of government surveillance systems or practices. Yet a blind spot does exist. Pick up your thousand dollar cell phone, the same one you’re buying. To use that cell phone, everything about you is being recorded and sent to the mother ship. This addictive object, you own and are paying monthly to use, is collecting almost everything about you. And you are okay with this because you accepted an End User License Agreement.

My friends say I have a lot of useless information floating around my head and all of it looking for a way to enter conversations. I can say out loud about some bit of arcane information and then look at search results on my phone, it heard me and is offering to take me on a trip to gather more useless junk. Seems benign doesn’t it? Yes, but it gets more interesting.

Everywhere we go, our devices are recording where we are and almost everything about our trip. This information is mined and used to, I suppose, feed information back to us or sold to others to develop business intelligence and understand consumer preferences. If you search for running shoes, you get ads for the same running shoes. 

This is surveillance and it gets even worse, our private thoughts, our questions, our conversations, our little journeys during the day…all of that is being recorded and sold using a device we own and pay to use. This is corporate surveillance we allow, mostly without being concerned. 

Let's get back to what government can do and what it probably doesn't do at all.

These arguments about government use of a technology, they ignore the point of how we are more trusting of multi-billion dollar corporations over government. I worked in government, albeit briefly, and the level of competence or initiative didn’t exist to affect an insidious surveillance program. That competence exists and is monetized within the corporate world on devices you own but in government, it is uncommon unless you already are a subject of an investigation.

Let’s face it, government isn’t particularly interested in you as an individual. What’s the threat? Oh yes, the mere possibility that something COULD happen. Trust me, government isn’t much of a threat. They can barely fix a pothole in a timely manner. I'm reasonably sure my state, county and city don't really care if I'm alive.

Here’s what facial recognition can do in law enforcement or public safety; it produces a lead. That’s it. A living and breathing law enforcement officer must go through a process before contacting a subject. I’m afraid, little robots aren’t dropping from the sky to take us away to jail. A human with a badge, has to do some work and even then, they may choose not to make contact. Recently, facial recognition technology was used to ACCURATELY identify a person who put rice cookers in public spaces. People thought the rice cookers may have been explosive devices. 

As a biometric, is facial recognition technology inaccurate 98% of the time? Are law enforcement officers going to misuse the technology to check up on ex-spouses or romantic partners? Does law enforcement search databases without warrants? Is the technology biased? Is our biometric information collected and stored in government databases?  These are the assertions which are specifically intended to stoke fears.

Is the technology inherently inaccurate? I think the engineers and end users can answer that questions far more effectively than I can but I have seen demonstrations and as the technology was explained, accuracy is based upon a scale of a captured image to one within a database. So, there are degrees of accuracy. Policy would dictate to what degree of accuracy contact could be made. Yes a technology CAN be regulated.

Will cops misuse the technology? Well, can cops misuse the databases they are able to access now? Yes, they can and I'm sure it happens. What makes facial recognition technology more onerous than a driver license database? This argument is the weakest but again, it exists to stoke fears. Let’s face it, cops are people too. I would like to think every single officer is honorable and honest, but I would be naive to believe that to be true. Most are, and as they are people, some are not. Access to facial recognition technology is not going to make an honest and honorable law enforcement officer an inherent threat to society because of the existence of a technology. That can be done without facial recognition already. 

Is it biased? First, I don't believe there is one generic or homogeneous facial recognition technology being rebranded and sold. To my understanding, there are different technologies which basically do similar things with similar results.

To the question of bias, there was an article written suggesting that a facial recognition technology was less accurate when identifying people with specific immutable characteristics. The argument is countered in multiple ways. First, I've read articles which have debunked statements suggesting inherent bias within the technology. These articles may or may not be in less or more truthful than others so you can choose what you want to believe. Human intervention is required to connect a person to a match. Bias may or may not exist but there is a check and I have yet to hear that facial recognition is a sole biometric which can be used as evidence to convict someone.

This concern that our biometric information may be collected and retained by government is perplexing. Our biometric information IS being retained by government. Have you ever had your fingerprints collected for a job or a license? That information may be retained. If you’ve been arrested, that biometric information is being retained. We do have a permanent record and we exist in many databases across the private and public sector. I'm afraid it is very difficult to live off the grid and to think we are is more fantastical than realistic.

There is an expectation of privacy, legally and yes, morally. In the public space, when we are outside of our homes, we recognize that systems are watching us. That system of surveillance may be a law enforcement officer on the side of the road observing as we drive or walk by. The system may also be a CCTV within a convenience store or financial institution. If you use toll roads, you are being surveilled and images taken of the vehicle and the person driving it. Cameras are not new, and neither is the technology to connect recent images to previous images of you. 

Are these generalized threats to our civil liberties from a technology a real threat as we go about our business in public? I don’t think so and I’m far more concerned with the corporate invasiveness into our personal lives, even our most intimate moments when our devices are listening and recording. That is the threat and if it isn't one, it is particularly disgusting.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want any contact with law enforcement other than is necessary. I believe law enforcement and the courts should have a hard job to bring someone to justice and prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that person’s guilt. When those who served and sacrificed to preserve and defend the Constitution for us, we should take the same stand and ensure their sacrifice was not trivial. Relinquishing or infringement of ANY right is an abomination. Yet, are we really infringing on rights with the advent and adoption of new technologies such as facial recognition?

Is facial recognition the greatest technological threat relative to nuclear and biological weapons? No. 

Is it a useful tool which augments what law enforcement is already doing? Yes, it can be. Is it the best technological tool law enforcement has? Probably not, there will be better.  More relative, is our concept of privacy being violated by government? Not in any more ways than it has been already by the use of other practices such as data collection, data mining and biometrics. Is our privacy being violated by corporations? Yes, definitely.

As you’re reading this on the internet, it must be true. Truth is in what we choose to believe, and it is in that personal selectivity that we should seek to arm ourselves with actual facts and data before formulating opinion.  This is all I hope will happen by typing on a keyboard. Seek the facts, ignore the fear and manipulation and make our own judgments. You may well disagree with me after doing your own research but don’t allow yourself to be tricked by groups who prey on fear.

When we succumb to being baited by fear and extreme arguments, we relinquish our free will, self determination and intellect to allowing our minds and opinions to being manipulated.

Michael R. Terry is the COO and National Government Relations Director for Government State and Local Partners LLC, an Austin based government affairs and business to government technology ventures firm www.gslptexas.com