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< | Who Owns Your Face? | >
> | There is Nowhere to Hide | | | -- By NatalieYoukel - 01 Nov 2015
Introduction | |
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< | Today, the face has become what the fingerprint was. Every face is comprised of a distinct set of characteristics ranging from the shape of your nose, to the distance between your eyes, to the pattern of your lips. There are no two faces alike. | >
> | Today, wherever you go or whatever you do there is a high probability that your biometric information is being collected and stored without your knowledge or consent. Biometric technologies have seen increasing use throughout the past couple decades. Biometrics is the use of human physical characteristics as individual identifiers.link text While any individual trait can be used to take a biometric reading, there are three in particular that are most commonly used. First is appearance. Biometric data collection based on appearance is primarily collected through the use of photographs, but also can be collected through written descriptions of an individuals weight, age, height, hair color, eye color, nose shape, and scars, among others. Second, biometric data can be collected through physiography. This includes fingerprints, dental measurements, optical scans, hand geometry, and DNA testing. Third, biometrics collection may occur through bio-dynamics. Bio-dynamics includes voice fluctuations, writing style, and body signals.
Individual identification through biometric data is done through the comparison of live data that is supplied and then run against a reference database. | | | | |
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< | As our lives have become increasingly digitalized, the method in which people communicate has drastically changed. Today, people “Like,” “Share,” and “Post” statements and images across social media websites in order to keep friends, family, and the public updated on life’s moments. But has anyone stopped to think about what happens to the photographs that they upload onto these social media websites? And how these photographs will impact the future of their existence? | >
> | As our lives have become increasingly digitalized, it has become harder and harder to prevent our biometric data from being collected, either by companies or the government, as people blindly and willing supply the information online, as well as through personal interactions. Have you ever wondered what happens to the photographs that you upload onto social media websites? Or what happens to the information you provide health care institutions when you visit the doctors office? Or what happens to the information stored and gathered from your use of computers and smart technology? | | | | |
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< | Companies such as Facebook, Google, Shutterfly, and LinkedIn? have. In fact, these companies have acquired facial recognition technology that runs each and every photograph that is uploaded through an algorithm that mathematically identifies and tags the unique characteristics of the face. | >
> | Companies across industries have. In fact, these companies are the ones that are storing and utilizing your biometric data without your consent. | | | | |
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< | You Can’t Hide From Mark Zuckerberg | >
> | Companies Everywhere Know Who You Are and What You Like | | | | |
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< | In the summer of 2010, Facebook launched its facial recognition “Tag Suggestions” feature. “Tag Suggestions” was introduced by default, forcing any Facebook user who noticed its implementation and disliked the feature to opt-out through a hard-to-find link. The “Tag Suggestions” feature encourages users, every time a photograph is uploaded, to “tag” the people in the photograph. Using facial recognition software, Facebook provides identifying names for the individuals it recognizes in the photograph. Facebook then associates the tags with that named individuals account, compares what the tagged photographs have in common, and then stores a summary of the comparison. When you are identified in a picture on Facebook, biometric software remembers your face so it can be “tagged” in other photographs. There is no option within a user’s Facebook privacy preferences to delete or prevent Facebook’s biometric-data collection. | >
> | Social media websites such as Facebook, use facial recognition/verification software to identify and learn more about users and their taste preferences. When you are identified in a picture on Facebook, biometric software remembers your face so it can be “tagged” in other photographs through Facebook’s “Tag Suggestions” software. Furthermore, Facebook has begun testing its new DeepFace? facial recognition/verification software that has the ability to compare images even when the angle, lighting, and facial expressions of the individual are different.link text | | | | |
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< | As of 2013, Facebook revealed that users have uploaded approximately 250 billion photos, and are continuing to upload 350 million new photos each day. Photo tagging is an integral aspect of Facebook’s business model. It allows the company to identify the people with whom its users interact in the real world. Moreover, it allows Facebook to figure out where we travel, what activities we take part in, and the type of people we like and dislike. | >
> | Additionally, the health care industry is constantly collecting biometric information on individuals. This biometric data collection is predominantly done through health care records arising from doctor office visits, hospitals stays, and pharmaceutical purchases. Furthermore, biometric collection has become extremely prominent in the health care industry through mobile applications and gadgets, distributed in the form of bracelets and trackers by Fitbit, Jawbone, and Nike. These applications and gadgets track and collect user activities such as walking, sleeping, calorie intake, calories burned, and other metrics such as heart rate. | | | | |
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< | Furthermore, as of 2014, Facebook has begun testing, in the form of research, its new DeepFace? facial recognition/verification software. The DeepFace? software uses “3D modeling techniques and artificial neural networks to recognize similarities between two images of the same person.” This software can compare images even when the angle, lighting, and facial expressions of the individual are different. The Software was trained on four million images, belonging to approximately four thousand people, uploaded by Facebook users and has a 97.25% success rate. Compare that to humans, who have a 97.53% rate of success. | >
> | Biometric data collection is also prominent in both the automobile sector and the banking sector. As of early 2015, Ford Motor Company is using a new measurement process –eye tracking – in order to collect emotional and logical consumer insights in the hopes to learn more about how consumers visually discover new automobiles. Presently, Ford Motor Company is working to deplore eye-tracking technologies that will measure how prospective customers in a show room respond to color, materials, size, and other relevant measures. Finally, Ford was recently granted a patent for a biometric device that uses fingerprints, retinal scans, and voice recognition to gain entry to and start a vehicle.link text Similar to the automobile industry, the banking industry, including banks such as Wells Fargo and Bank of America, has begun testing voice recognition and eye scanning technologies for use on mobile applications.link text | | | | |
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< | It is Time to Invest in a Hat and a Good Pair of Sunglasses | >
> | It is Time to Invest in a Hat, Gloves and a Good Pair of Sunglasses | | | | |
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< | The problem with the facial recognition technology created by Facebook, and other similar companies, is that while people have the power to turn off their phones or computers and disable certain applications, we can not get rid of or change our faces – easily, that is. Unlike Europe, the United States currently has no specific federal law governing facial recognition. As a result, the facial recognition/verification software implemented by social media websites could have/potentially has grave privacy implications. | >
> | The problem with the collection of biometric data by companies and institutions such as Facebook, Fitbit, Ford Motor Company, Wells Fargo, and others similarly situated, is that it is nearly impossible for humans to prevent, as the traits and characteristics collected are immutable. Furthermore, once such biometric information has been collected and stored there is no method for individual deletion. As a result, the use of biometric data by companies and institutions has grave privacy implications. | | | | |
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< | First, companies such as Facebook do not notify consumers of their use of facial recognition software, nor do they seek a user’s consent prior to identifying them in the “Tag Suggestions.” Moreover, these facial recognition technologies have the ability to connect a person’s face with a name and then link the name to intimate details of that individual’s life that are available online. These intimate details may include: home addresses, dating preferences, employment histories and/or religious beliefs, among others. The worst part is that the consumer has no idea that this has happened. | >
> | First, companies such as Facebook, Fitbit, and Ford Motor Company do not notify consumers of their collection of biometric data and do not first acquire consumer consent. Facebook’s Tag Suggestions software easily captures facial biometric data on individuals who upload the photograph but also individuals who are subsequently tagged. Fingerprints can also be easily collected without an individual’s knowledge as fingerprints are left on all surfaces that an individual may touch. Furthermore, optical scans such as those being implemented by Ford Motor Company can read peoples’ eye movements from a distance of two meters.link text | | | | |
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< | Second, the ability of the software to match images of the same person – no matter what the surrounding circumstances are or the angle of the face – if implemented by companies across industries has the potential to give businesses or individuals the ability to identify or find almost anyone in public without their knowledge or consent. It also has the ability to enable mass surveillance, as it will become easy to target and track people’s locations, movements, activities, and associations. | >
> | Second, the use of biometric data, once collected, can be used for many purposes that individuals do not initially consent to. For example, data may be collected through health care records but then used to match those records with future biometric data samples.
Third, the collection and use of biometric information may impliedly divulge other intimate details of an individual’s life. For example, DNA samples do not only identify an individual but can also provide an accurate reading on a wide range of other health information. Moreover, the status of an individuals’ fingerprint may reveal work habits or socio-economic status.link text
Lastly, companies such as Facebook, Fitbit, Ford Motor Company, and Wells Fargo have the potential to sell or share with third parties, other companies or the government, the information collected through biometrics. This too, would happen behind the consumer’s back and too easily done in a way that the consumer does not understand or consent to.
The widespread and increasing use of biometric data collection among market industries will eventually lead to the complete demise of anonymity. As a result, it is likely that we will find ourselves in a world where it isn’t only celebrities that never leave the confines of their houses without a large hat, a pair of gloves, and a dark pair of sunglasses. | | | | |
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< | Lastly, companies such as Facebook have the potential to sell or share with third parties the information collected or associated with facial recognition technology. This too, would happen behind the consumer’s back and too easily done in a way that the consumer does not understand or consent to. For example, if Facebook’s database of users and photos is shared with retail businesses, these businesses could then compare photos taken in store with information connected to the individuals found online, potentially resulting in tailored digital advertising. Furthermore, Facebook’s database could hypothetically one day be accessed for intelligence or law-enforcement purposes. | | | | |
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< | The widespread use of facial recognition/verification software among social media websites, compounded with the constantly evolving technologies and the current lack of federal regulation, over time may drastically change the landscape of the world in which we live. While, fingerprints may be readily accessible, they can be easily guarded and protected, but your face is harder to disguise. It may no longer be only in the science fiction movies that we see a time where billboards address us personally by name, where anonymity ceases to exist, and where it isn’t only celebrities that never leave the confines of their houses without a large hat and a dark pair of sunglasses. | | |
| | | If the subject is facial recognition produced by the application of machine learning to large numbers of photos people meant to share only with friends and family, the problem is one more instance of why centralized "social networking" is bad. If you were using a $50 FreedomBox to share your photos, they would only be shared with your real friends, not the data-miners, and there would be many fewer images of your around, particularly if your friends also stopped their ridiculous unsafe sharing..... | |
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I decided to make the paper about biometrics instead of just facial recognition. I hope that this draft successfully takes into account your suggestions. I did find it slightly difficult to adequately explain the use of biometrics across industries due to the 1,000 word limit. | | | | |
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< | Sources
https://verdict.justia.com/2012/09/25/the-right-to-be-untagged
http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-350-million-photos-each-day-2013-9
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/03/18/deepface_facebook_face_recognition_software_is_97_percent_accurate.html
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/525586/facebook-creates-software-that-matches-faces-almost-as-well-as-you-do/ | >
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