There are face search engines, say Clearview AI and PimEyes, which have the capability to pair photos from the public web. These tools are available to the police which can identify a snapshot of someone by comparing it with online photos where the face appears. The identification reveals the name, social media profiles and other information which perhaps the person would not reveal to the public, e.g. risque photos.
These are technological breakthroughs. And the breakthroughs are ethical.
Tech giants such as Facebook and Google had developed the face recognition technology years earlier but they had held back the technology, thinking that it is too dangerous putting a name to a stranger’s face.
As far back as 2017, at Menlo Park, California, the HQ of Facebook, Tommar Leyvand, an engineer demonstrated a facial recognition software. It identified with a mobile camera the face of Zach Howard, and Howard confirmed the identification is right. The phone then identified several people correctly. This technology is a god-send for a person with vision problems or face blindness. However, it was risky.
Facebook had previously deployed facial recognition technology to tag friends in photos, but there was a hue and cry about the privacy. It was in 2015. Facebook faced a lawsuit costing company $650 million.
The new facial recognition software of Leyvand could enable users to recall the name of a colleague at a party or search someone at a crowded place. Still, Facebook did not release the version. In the meantime, Levyland left Facebook and joined Apple to work on its glasses — Vision Pro AR.
As early as 2011, a Google engineer worked on facial recognition tool. Months later, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt declared that the technology has been withheld.
With recent releases of the startups, the taboo has been broken. Facial recognition technology has the potential to become ubiquitous.
It helps the police to solve crimes. Authoritarian governments use it for surveillance of their citizens. It can soon become an app on our phones, or in Augmented Reality (AR) glasses. We will usher in a world with no strangers.