Facial recognition is here to stay. And we should all probably accept it

guest · Jul 16, 2021

Momentum builds on federal oversight of facial recognition tech after reported abuses
July 15, 2021
https://www.cyberscoop.com/facial-recognition-ban-congress-abuse-race-policing/

Lawmakers in the House and Senate are considering legislation that would halt the use of facial recognition and biometric data collection tools by federal law enforcement, signaling that the controversial technologies may soon be subject to oversight after years of debate and revelations about its role in discriminatory policing.

The Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act, reintroduced in June by Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), would fully ban the use of facial recognition and biometric technology by federal agencies, barring a lift by Congress.
More than 40 privacy and civil liberties groups have thrown their weight on the Hill and organizing power behind the Biometric Technology Moratorium Act, saying that cases in which law enforcement use of facial recognition has violated American’s privacy and legal rights have worsened.
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The issue has gained momentum in light of high-profile uses of the technology, which has traditionally been obscured by a lack of oversight.

“Law enforcement agencies and tech companies have weaponized facial recognition technology for too long, repeatedly putting Black people’s safety and our civil rights in harm’s way,” Jade Magnus Ogunnaike, senior campaigns director at Color Of Change, a racial justice organization, told CyberScoop.
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guest · Jul 21, 2021

Maine’s facial recognition law shows bipartisan support for protecting privacy
July 20, 2021
https://techcrunch.com/2021/07/20/m...ws-bipartisan-support-for-protecting-privacy/

Maine has joined a growing number of cities, counties and states that are rejecting dangerously biased surveillance technologies like facial recognition.

The new law, which is the strongest statewide facial recognition law in the country, not only received broad, bipartisan support, but it passed unanimously in both chambers of the state legislature. Lawmakers and advocates spanning the political spectrum — from the progressive lawmaker who sponsored the bill to the Republican members who voted it out of committee, from the ACLU of Maine to state law enforcement agencies — came together to secure this major victory for Mainers and anyone who cares about their right to privacy.
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The ACLU supports this federal legislation that would protect all people in the United States from invasive surveillance. We urge all Americans to ask their members of Congress to join the movement to halt facial recognition technology and support it, too.
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guest · Jul 23, 2021

Why schools need to abandon facial recognition, not double down on it
July 23, 2021
https://www.fastcompany.com/90657769/schools-facial-recognition

With the loosening of COVID-19 restrictions and the end of summer quickly approaching, schools are preparing to welcome students back into their classrooms for in-person learning. With that transition comes the return of a troubling trend in education—the monitoring of students through facial recognition systems, as well as the consideration of using the technology to enforce existing school discipline policies.

The use of this technology disproportionately harms students of color and undermines schools’ commitments to providing equitable and safe learning environments. School districts must expel this flawed and biased technology from our schools, not double down on it.
Emerging research is clear that facial recognition technology is inaccurate and reproduces age, race, and ethnicity biases. It also performs more poorly on children as compared to adults due, in part, to facial changes that occur during adolescence.
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Technological flaws and limitations, however, are not the only concern. Facial recognition technology represents an unprecedented expansion of monitoring and surveillance. Constant surveillance can increase student anxiety and stress, particularly if captured data is being used for student assessment, monitoring, and disciplinary decisions.
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guest · Jul 24, 2021

25 States Are Forcing Face Recognition on People Filing for Unemployment
July 23, 2021
https://gizmodo.com/25-states-are-forcing-face-recognition-on-people-filing-1847350707

Now in many states, you’ll have to surrender a faceprint to a private face recognition program in order to access basic government services like unemployment insurance.

CNN reports that 25 states are currently using the commercial face recognition software ID.me to verify the identities of people filing for unemployment benefits, which likely adds millions of people to the state face recognition database. (As of early July, 9.5 million people are unemployed throughout the U.S., according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.)
Per the ID.me guide, claimants have to set up an ID.me account, with an email address, social security number, photo ID, and a video faceprint. ID.me says that it needs explicit consent before it shares information, so your choice here: do you want your rent money or not?
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Several states, including Colorado, Nevada, and New York explicitly require people who’ve already been collecting unemployment insurance to re-upload their documents to ID.me with a video faceprint. In an email to Gizmodo, a spokesperson for the New York State Department of Labor said the state has wholesale replaced paper documents, such as birth certificates, with historically faulty face recognition technology.
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guest · Jul 26, 2021

Despite controversies and bans, facial recognition startups are flush with VC cash
July 26, 2021
https://techcrunch.com/2021/07/26/facial-recognition-flush-with-cash/

If efforts by states and cities to pass privacy regulations curbing the use of facial recognition are anything to go by, you might fear the worst for the companies building the technology. But a recent influx of investor cash suggests the facial recognition startup sector is thriving, not suffering.

A breakdown of Crunchbase data by FindBiometrics shows a sharp rise in venture funding in facial recognition companies at well over $500 million in 2021 so far, compared to $622 million for all of 2020.
Although the applications and customers of facial recognition wildly vary, there’s still a big market for the technology.
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guest · Jul 30, 2021

You have a choice: China’s top court empowers people to say ‘no’ to facial recognition use by private businesses
July 29, 2021
https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/ar...hinas-top-court-empowers-people-say-no-facial

China’s top court pushes back against arbitrary use of facial recognition data and clarifies rules amid widespread technology adoption

The directive can empower Chinese individuals to resist abuse of facial recognition technology by private businesses

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China’s top court has made a key judgment related to facial recognition technology, empowering individuals to reject unauthorised facial recognition data collection by commercial entities such as hotels, banks and nightclubs.

The decision, which is included in a directive issued to local courts this week by the People’s Supreme Court, makes it clear that any collection and analysis of facial data by commercial operations must receive the “independent” consent of the individual concerned. If not, the act of using facial recognition technology can be defined as an infringement of personal rights and interests, a civil offence that allows the victim to file a lawsuit and claim compensation.
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The directive will likely have far-reaching consequences for China’s booming surveillance camera and related data systems industry, increasing legal and operating costs.

“The Supreme Court was in a hurry. It didn’t even wait for the Personal Information Protection Law to be rolled out,” said He Yuan, executive director of Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Data Law Research Centre. “Because it cannot wait anymore.”
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guest · Jul 31, 2021

Spanish DPA Fines Supermarket Chain 2,520,000 EUR for Unlawful Use of Facial Recognition System
July 30, 2021
https://www.huntonprivacyblog.com/2...or-unlawful-use-of-facial-recognition-system/

On July 27, 2021, the Spanish Data Protection Authority (the “AEPD”) imposed a €2,520,000 fine on Spanish supermarket chain Mercadona, S.A. for unlawful use of a facial recognition system.

Following its investigation, the AEPD found that Mercadona was using a facial recognition system in 48 of its shops for several months across Spain to detect individuals with criminal convictions or restraining orders (particularly, individuals who had received a restraining order after assaulting an employee of a store or that had been convicted for a store-based incident).
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In addition, the AEPD found that the processing did not meet the principles of necessity, proportionality and data minimization, transparency and privacy by design. Moreover, the AEPD found that the data protection impact assessment conducted by Mercadona was insufficient and incomplete as it did not account for the risks posed to Mercadona employees by the data processing.

The AEPD found that none of the legal grounds available under Article 9 of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (which sets forth the legal grounds available for the processing of sensitive data, including biometric data) could be used by Mercadona for the processing of biometric data through its facial recognition system – hence, the AEPD declared the processing unlawful.
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guest · Aug 1, 2021

ACLU of Washington: Port of Seattle’s facial recognition tech ‘ban’ misleading, inadequate
July 30, 2021
https://www.geekwire.com/2021/aclu-...l-recognition-tech-ban-misleading-inadequate/

Accusing the Port of Seattle of making promises it can’t keep, the American Civil Liberties Union called on the port to improve both its honesty and policies regarding the use of facial recognition technology.

Specifically, the ACLU described the Port Commission’s recent declaration that it effectively banned biometric surveillance including facial recognition technology as disingenuous. The commission controls and sets policy for the Port of Seattle and Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
In other words, she said, it can’t really ban what it doesn’t really control. And this means the ban, announced July 13, did more for port public relations than it did for privacy, she said. “The port should not be providing cover for CBP actions,” she added. “It is trying to put a friendly face on it.”
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guest · Aug 4, 2021

What One City Hopes to Learn by Pausing Use of Facial Recognition Technology
August 3, 2021
https://www.nextgov.com/emerging-te...ing-use-facial-recognition-technology/184243/

The Baltimore City Council approved legislation this summer that temporarily bans the use of facial recognition technology by residents, businesses and most city agencies.

The legislation is expected to be signed by the mayor. If adopted, city lawmakers want the bill to do more than protect residents’ privacy—they also hope it will advance the conversation on policing and public safety to include a more holistic approach.
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Baltimore’s Unique Ban
A smattering of states and other cities have enacted bans or adopted restrictions on use of facial recognition technology. Baltimore’s ban is unique in that it excludes the city police department from the mandate—unlike most local governments, the state rather than the city council has authority over the police department.

The bill, which if passed will block use of facial recognition technology through December 2022, does take a significant step in that it blocks city agencies and the police department from acquiring new facial recognition technology or capabilities, Burnett said.
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While the ban is in place, the city will establish a task force that will examine possible guidelines for future use of the technology or whether a permanent ban would be appropriate, Burnett said.
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guest · Aug 5, 2021

You can buy a metro ticket with your face – but at what cost?
August 5, 2021
https://thenextweb.com/news/facial-recognition-trialed-by-moscow-metro-for-ticketing

Everyone knows the pain of losing your metro ticket and having to line up behind tourists at the station gates as you rush to meet a train. Moscow Metro recently announced a trial of facial recognition called FacePay on the Filevskaya metro line. 1000 commuters are participating in the trial, and the process is simple.

Users install the Moscow Metro app, then upload a photo of their face and link a bank card to pay.
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Facial recognition tech is a global trend
Moscow Metro is not the first transport department to deploy facial recognition tech to reduce bottlenecks at the turnstiles. Korea is in the middle of pilots, and Georgia already uses facial recognition tech at metro stations.
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In the case of the Moscow trial, there’s no information about how long it will be kept after the trial or the third-party sharing of your photo with police or other government agencies.

Ultimately, hands-free turnstiles are not a compelling enough reason to further erode our right to privacy in public spaces.
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longshots · Aug 5, 2021

‘Master Faces’ That Can Bypass Over 40% Of Facial ID Authentication Systems
https://www.unite.ai/master-faces-that-can-bypass-over-40-of-facial-id-authentication-systems/

Researchers from Israel have developed a neural network capable of generating ‘master’ faces – facial images that are each capable of impersonating multiple IDs. The work suggests that it’s possible to generate such ‘master keys’ for more than 40% of the population using only 9 faces synthesized by the StyleGAN Generative Adversarial Network (GAN), via three leading face recognition systems.
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guest · Aug 12, 2021

Japanese firms to jointly develop facial recognition payment system
August 12, 2021
https://japantoday.com/category/tec...tly-develop-facial-recognition-payment-system

Four Japanese firms will jointly develop a payment system using facial recognition technology that will allow customers to make deposits and withdrawals at banks and shop at stores without presenting anything if they register their facial images in advance.

Banking group Resona Holdings Inc, Panasonic System Solutions Japan Co, a unit of electronics giant Panasonic Corp, credit card firm JCB Co and Dai Nippon Printing Co expect the system to be put into practical use in a wide range of fields, including checking in at hotels and renting cars.
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The banking group will test whether it is possible to use the system to make deposits, withdrawals and transfers as well as purchase investment trusts at some of the Resona Bank branches without passbooks or cash cards in the fiscal year starting next April.

JCB, meanwhile, expects that by using the planned system, its card users who register their facial images in advance will be instantly identified and able to complete payments when they visit its member stores.
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The four companies plan to develop a system under which facial image data will be stored on a server that cannot be accessed from the outside. Resona will manage the system.

"With the development of artificial intelligence, the accuracy of facial recognition has improved dramatically, making fraud difficult," a Panasonic official said.
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guest · Aug 15, 2021

mood said: ↑

You have a choice: China’s top court empowers people to say ‘no’ to facial recognition use by private businesses
July 29, 2021
https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/ar...hinas-top-court-empowers-people-say-no-facial
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China now lets citizens opt out of private face recognition. Does your country?
August 12, 2021
https://www.comparitech.com/blog/vpn-privacy/frt-privacy-laws/

It’s no secret that China’s use of facial recognition technology (FRT) is the most invasive in the world. In our recent analysis of how 100 countries use FRT, China had the worst score with the most widespread use of the technology.

But in a recent twist, China’s Supreme Court has given citizens the right to refuse FRT use by private businesses, including banks, hotels, and nightclubs. The ruling, which the Supreme Court has hurried to execute because it “couldn’t wait anymore,” ensures that informed, opt-in consent is gained from private businesses who want to use FRT.
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China is just one of six countries to govern FRT in private businesses
Out of the 25 countries we covered, only six countries have explicit laws/rulings around the use of FRT in a private setting. These are China, Brazil, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Belgium.

In the United States, only a handful of states/cities have banned FRT (including Maine, Massachusetts, and the cities of Minneapolis and San Francisco) but with no federal ruling or guidance on its use, this leaves each state free to rule on FRT as it wishes.
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But in countries with more relaxed laws and where opt-out consent is deemed adequate enough, FRT within public places, and especially within supermarkets, appears to be growing at an alarming rate.
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guest · Aug 16, 2021

New police CCTV use rules criticised as bare bones
August 16, 2021
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-58206586

Live facial-recognition systems compare faces captured on closed-circuit television with those on a watch-list, alerting officers to a match.

Former CCTV watchdog Tony Porter said the new rules were "bare bones" and offered unclear guidance.
And two campaign groups have called for the practice to be ended entirely.

The Home Office said the new guidelines, included in the first update to the Surveillance Camera Code of Practice in eight years, empowered police and maintained public trust.
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Liberty lawyer Megan Goulding, who worked on Mr Bridges's case, told BBC News: "One year since our case led the court to agree that this technology violates our rights and threatens our liberty, these guidelines fail to properly account for either the court's findings or the dangers created by this dystopian surveillance tool.

"Facial recognition will not make us safer, it will turn public spaces into open-air prisons and entrench patterns of discrimination that already oppress entire communities".
The campaign group Big Brother Watch also called for the technology to be banned and said the code legitimised the use of an invasive surveillance technology.
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However the Ada Lovelace Institute told the BBC, the updated camera code, "provides important additional guidance around the use of biometric technologies such as LFR in surveillance cameras".
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guest · Aug 19, 2021

Justice Department says facial recognition helped end an almost 15-year manhunt
The fugitive opened a bank account in Austria, and authorities found a match
August 19, 2021
https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/19/...tted-offshore-gambling-scammer-cryptocurrency

A fugitive who Justice Department officials say had scammed more than 20 people out of hundreds of thousands of dollars was sentenced to four years in prison on Friday, after being on the run for almost 15 years. Austrian authorities were able to identify Randy Levine, 54, of Boca Raton, Florida, due to a facial recognition system according to the DOJ, after he tried to use an alias to open a bank account, leading to his arrest in June 2020.
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guest · Aug 23, 2021

Civil liberties groups demand government bans facial recognition cameras
Thirty-one civil society organisations are calling on the government to ban facial recognition cameras
August 23, 2021
https://news.sky.com/story/civil-li...ment-bans-facial-recognition-cameras-12388513

The group, which includes Amnesty International, Liberty and Privacy International, has accused police and the Home Office of bypassing parliament over guidance allowing police, local councils and enforcement agencies to use facial recognition across England and Wales in defiance of court rulings against invasive filming.

The guidance was published last week by the College of Policing during the parliamentary recess and without any announcement, according to The Daily Telegraph.

"Police and the Home Office have, so far, completely bypassed parliament on the matter of LFRT (live facial recognition technology).
The group said it feared LFRT "may be used in a broad range of public gatherings" such as sporting events, music concerts, and protests, threatening protected rights.
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guest · Aug 25, 2021

Most US government agencies are using facial recognition
A new GAO report finds 19 agencies are using some form of the technology
August 25, 2021
https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/25/22641216/facial-recognition-gao-report-agency-dhs-cbp-fbi

A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that 19 of the 24 US government agencies surveyed are using facial recognition in some way, illustrating how commonplace the controversial technology has become within the federal government. The list of agencies includes agencies like the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that maintain in-house systems, alongside smaller agencies that use the system to control access to high-security locations.

“As the use of FRT continues to expand,” the report explains, “members of Congress, academics, and advocacy organizations have highlighted the importance of developing a comprehensive understanding of how it is used by federal agencies.”
A previous GAO report found federal agencies have few meaningful systems in place to track the use of privately contracted facial recognition systems.
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One system described in the report, called “TacID Guard Dog,” is used by the Department of Energy to “monitor entry and exit from controlled locations.”

The report found four separate agencies that had used Clearview AI, a controversial private company that compares new photos against data scraped from social media platforms.
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hawki · Aug 25, 2021

mood said: ↑

Most US government agencies are using facial recognition
A new GAO report finds 19 agencies are using some form of the technology
August 25, 2021
https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/25/22641216/facial-recognition-gao-report-agency-dhs-cbp-fbi
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"Federal government to expand use of facial recognition despite growing concerns...

The federal government plans to expand its use of facial recognition to pursue criminals and scan for threats, an internal survey has found, even as concerns grow about the technology’s potential for contributing to improper surveillance and false arrests.

Ten federal agencies — the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Interior, Justice, State, Treasury and Veterans Affairs — told the Government Accountability Office they intend to grow their facial recognition capabilities by 2023, the GAO said in a report posted to its website Tuesday..."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/tech...cognition-expansion/?itid=hp-more-top-stories

guest · Sep 27, 2021

Facial recognition contractor Clearview AI withdraws subpoenas served on nonprofit
September 27, 2021
https://www.fedscoop.com/facial-rec...w-ai-withdraws-subpoenas-served-on-nonprofit/

A technology company that provides facial recognition technology to at least four government agencies has withdrawn subpoenas it served on a nonprofit.

Clearview AI this morning announced that it would not pursue the court orders, which were obtained against transparency lobby group Open the Government. Clearview was seeking to obtain details of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests relating to the use of facial recognition by law enforcement agencies from the nonprofit, as well as communications with journalists.
In a statement, Clearview CEO Hoan Ton-That said:

“On further reflection about the scope of the subpoenas, and my strong view of freedom of the press, we have decided to withdraw the subpoenas served on Open the Government and its associates.”
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Clearview AI had subpoenaed OTG and one of its employees to turn over all responses it received to Freedom of Information Requests, as well as First Amendment-protected communications the nonprofit had with media in relation to scraping images and personal information from social media sites and selling data to law enforcement agencies.

News that the company has scrapped its legal demands follow a report on the subpoenas Friday by Politico.
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guest · Oct 1, 2021

Met Police purchase new retrospective facial-recognition system
October 1, 2021
https://www.computerweekly.com/news...e-new-retrospective-facial-recognition-system

The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) is deploying a new retrospective facial-recognition (RFR) technology in the next three months, allowing the force to process biometric information contained in historic images from CCTV, social media and other sources.

Unlike live facial-recognition (LFR) technology, which the MPS began deploying operationally in January 2020, RFR is applied to already-captured images retroactively.
Both versions of facial-recognition work by scanning faces and matching them against a set of selected images, otherwise known as “watch lists”, but the difference with LFR is that it does it in real-time by scanning people as they pass the camera.
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The main purpose of RFR is to assist in identifying suspects from still or specific images extracted from video, which will need to be lawfully held by the force, said the MPS in its MOPAC submission.

“These may be images that have been captured by cameras at burglaries, assaults, shootings and other crime scenes. They could also be images shared by or submitted by members of the public,” it said.

The introduction of RFR at scale is also worrisome from a human rights perspective, Leufer added, because it smooths out the various points of friction associated with conducting mass surveillance.

“With CCTV, it involved people going through images, doing manual matches against databases…that friction, the time that it actually took to do that, meant that CCTV wasn’t as dangerous as it is now. The fact that it can now be used for this purpose requires a re-evaluation of whether we can have those cameras in our public spaces.”
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guest · Oct 6, 2021

European Parliament calls for a ban on facial recognition in public spaces
MEPs also said private facial recognition databases like Clearview AI should be prohibited.
October 6, 2021
https://www.engadget.com/european-parliament-facial-recognition-ban-ai-bias-165833826.html

The European Parliament has called on lawmakers in the European Union to ban automated facial recognition in public spaces and to enforce strict safeguards for police use of artificial intelligence. MEPs voted in favor of the non-binding resolution by 377-248, with 62 abstentions.

The MEPs said citizens should only be monitored when they're suspected of a crime. They cited concerns over algorithmic bias in AI and argued that both human supervision and legal protections are required to avoid discrimination.
The resolution states that "those subject to AI-powered systems must have recourse to remedy."
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In addition, the MEPs called on EU officials to ban private facial recognition databases (some law enforcement agencies in Europe are using Clearview AI's one), as well as "predictive policing based on behavioral data." They also urged the European Commission to prohibit social scoring or social credit systems and said the iBorderCtrl virtual border agent and other border control systems that use automated recognition should be shut down.
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guest · Oct 7, 2021

Face Recognition Technology: Commonly Used Terms
October 7, 2021
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/10/face-recognition-technology-commonly-used-terms

As face recognition technology evolves at a dizzying speed, new uses and terminologies seem to develop daily. On this page, we attempt to define and disambiguate some of the most commonly used terms.
For more information on government use of face recognition and how to end it in your community, visit EFF’s About Face resource page.

Face detection: Determines whether an image includes a human face. Some government agencies use face detection to aid in obscuring identifiable faces before releasing video footage in response to requests for public records.
Face recognition: Any collection and processing of faceprints, including both face matching and face analysis (two terms defined below). Face recognition raises significant digital rights concerns.
Faceprinting: A fundamental step in the process of face recognition, faceprinting is the automated analysis and translation of visible characteristics of a face into a unique mathematical representation of that face. Both collection and storage of this information raise privacy and safety concerns.
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Face matching: Any comparison of two or more faceprints.

Face identification: Compares (i) a single faceprint of an unknown person to (ii) a set of faceprints of known people
Face verification: Compares (i) a single faceprint of a person seeking verification of their authorization to (ii) one or more faceprints of authorized individuals.
Face clustering: Compares all the faceprints in a collection of images to one another, in order to group the images containing a particular person or group of people.
Face tracking: Uses faceprints to follow the movements of a particular person through a physical space covered by one or more surveillance cameras, such as the interior of a store or the exterior sidewalks in a city’s downtown.
Face analysis, also known as face inference: Any processing of a faceprint, without comparison to another individual’s faceprint, to learn something about the person from whom the faceprint was extracted.
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For more information about the various kinds of face recognition, check out this more detailed post.
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guest · Oct 12, 2021

Ban UK police use of facial-recognition, House of Lords told
October 12, 2021
https://www.computerweekly.com/news...use-of-facial-recognition-House-of-Lords-told

UK police continue to deploy facial-recognition technology disproportionately with no clear legal basis and highly questionable efficacy, according to expert witnesses at a House of Lords inquiry.

In evidence given to the Lords Home Affairs and Justice Committee about the use of advanced algorithmic tools by law enforcement, experts called into question the proportionality and efficacy of how facial-recognition technology has been deployed by the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) and South Wales Police (SWP).
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Silkie Carlo, director of civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch, said that in five years the MPS had only achieved 11 positive matches using live facial-recognition (LFR) technology,

“In that time, they have scanned hundreds of thousands of people on the streets of London, and created a lot of distrust among communities, particularly by deploying repeatedly at Notting Hill Carnival – I think there’s inevitably a racialised element to that – and by deploying repeatedly in the borough of Newham as well, which is the most diverse borough of London,” she said.
Yeung further noted that, unlike LFR trials conducted in Germany and France, the MPS tested the technology on real-life suspects.

“In other Western European countries, they have been using volunteers to test the accuracy of this data, and they have a full database of the people passing in front of the cameras – this has not been the case in London, they have been doing operational trials,” she said.
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guest · Oct 17, 2021

UK schools will use facial recognition to speed up lunch payments
But is it worth trading privacy for a faster queue?
October 17, 2021
https://www.engadget.com/uk-school-facial-recognition-cafeteria-canteen-200457972.html

Facial recognition may soon play a role in your child's lunch. The Financial Times reports that nine schools in the UK's North Ayrshire will start taking payments for canteen (aka cafeteria) lunches by scanning students' faces. The technology should help minimize touch during the pandemic, but is mainly meant to speed up transaction times. That could be important when you may have roughly 25 minutes to serve an entire school of hungry kids.
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Both the schools and system installer CRB Cunningham argued the systems would address privacy and security concerns. CRB Cunningham noted its hardware wasn't using live facial recognition (actively scanning crowds), and was checking against encrypted faceprint templates. Schools were already using fingerprint readers, too, so this was more of a shift in biometric technology than a brand new layer of security.

North Ayrshire's council added that 97 percent of children or parents had offered consent.
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You might not see this spread to the US and other countries given mounting opposition. However, it's safe to say many will be watching the UK school rollout to gauge both the viability of facial recognition and its real-world pitfalls.
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guest · Oct 18, 2021

Privacy fears as Moscow metro rolls out facial recognition pay system
October 15, 2021
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...metro-rolls-out-facial-recognition-pay-system

The Moscow metro has rolled out what authorities have lauded as the world’s first mass-scale facial recognition payment system, amid privacy concerns over the new technology.

The cashless, cardless and phoneless system, named Face Pay, launched at more than 240 stations across the Russian capital on Friday.

“Now all the passengers will be able to pay for travel without taking out their phone, metro or bank card,” the Moscow mayor, Sergey Sobyanin, tweeted on Thursday evening.
To activate Face Pay, Sobyanin said, passengers will need to connect their photo, bank card and metro card to the service through the metro’s mobile app. “It will be enough just to look at the camera to pass through the turnstiles,” Sobyanin said.

“Moscow is the first in the world to introduce Face Pay on such a scale. The technology is new and very complex, we will continue to work on improving it,” the mayor added.
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Authorities have said passengers’ data will be “securely encrypted”, saying the information collected will be stored in data processing centres to which only interior ministry staff have access.

However, activists have raised the alarm over privacy concerns. “This is a dangerous new step in Russia’s push for control over its population. We need to have full transparency on how this application will work in practice,” said Stanislav Shakirov, the founder of Roskomsvoboda, a group dedicated to protecting digital rights and freedom of information.
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