Have you ever been on an international trip outside of Canada? When you come back, you have to do your declaration along with a picture of yourself and a scan of your passport. This might sound like a familiar experience to many of you, and it directly related to different facial recognition technology used by private and government sectors to help with different identifying and safety concerns. While this technology may be used to help contribute to the greater good, this like any other surveillance methods have their ethical and privacy concerns. On a basic level, facial recognition technology is the use of using an image of a persons face and back checking it against a database of many different pictures to identify unique features in the face. The main goal of facial recognition technology is aimed to verify the identity of a given individual. As this technology has become more advanced, many different private and government sectors have taken this technology into consideration, weighing the pros and cons in efforts to streamline and maximize efficiency.
According to an article done by CBC in June of 2024, some divisions of police in Canada are reportedly trying to increase their use of facial recognition technology. According to these governing bodies, they are able to find suspects and solve crimes in a more efficient manner with the use of facial recognition. Although this might sound fantastic and obviously should be implemented, the reason why these policing bodies have not been able to implement this technology widespread is due to the raised concerns that citizens have had over the ethical use of this technology. According to critics of this technology, there are mass identification concerns swell as misidentification concerns. As policing bodies who have tried to implement this technology have not been open and communicative about the use of this technology, it has hard to bridge the gap of trust between government and citizens for the lack of communication.
Along with the government sector, several private sectors have been implementing the use of facial recognition technology in efforts to help their businesses in several different facets. For example, facial recognition technology has been used in many different stores to help their operations. While you may walk into a store sometimes and see a security camera, thinking that the sole purpose of the camera is to help the store protect against crime and theft, that is in fact not the only purpose that the camera is used for. Recently, different private businesses have been using facial recognition technology to further understand consumer habits, so they are able to effectively target efforts at what people want. Similar to the government sector of facial recognition technology, there have been ethical concerns raised surrounding this technology due to the miscommunication of the use of it at all. Many different stores have implemented this technology without the proper disclosure to their customers which have caused many different issues. Unlike the government sector though, there are split perceptions of the use of this technology in private sectors like stores. While some believe they are ethically being violated with facial recognition, others appreciate that they are more safe and see more of what they want to see through the use of this technology.
Circling back to my main goal of my deep dive inquiry being the study of how digital surveillance impacts personal security and privacy, as well as the ethical concerns surrounding this topic and ensuring a balance has been struck, I believe that there is a lot to uncover under this topic. To begin, I believe that facial recognition technology has impacted personal privacy and security in a big way. Through the use of this technology paired with the closed communication from bodies of power, there are chances that we are being watched in places that we don’t even know. I believe that this can contribute to a big issue. Personally though, I don’t mid the use to facial recognition technology in the government and private sector. As a person who follows the law, I believe that these initiatives only help me and make me more safe in the places that I live in, so I appreciate the initiative. I believe that the only way to strike an ethical balance in this conversation in for bodies of power to be more open surrounding their goals and effort surrounding facial detection. If clear channels of communication are open, then it will allow for back and fourth conversation where individuals are able to understand that this technology is used to benefit them rather then hurt them.
After reading my blog post and the articles I have consulted, I invite you to share your thoughts with me on the subject. Do you believe that facial recognition technology is overall good? Or bad? Do you believe that facial recognition technology should be something that is more controlled and monitored by regulatory bodies? Let me know!
Sources/Articles Consulted
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/facial-recognition-ai-police-canada-1.7251065
https://www.kaspersky.com/resource-center/definitions/what-is-facial-recognition