Hopes, Dreams and Concerns of Facial Recognition Technology

Facial scanning > fingerprints

Ditching fingerprints for facial scanning brings some exciting new possibilities to the table, while also treading similar ground. Unlike the Galaxy S8 or Note 8, iPhone X utilizes a more accurate stereo measurement of the user’s face instead of the traditional two-dimensional scanning. The system is said to outpace fingerprints in terms of security, since the latter can be fooled in various ways, such as using a piece of tape that has the target’s fingerprint captured on it. Also, the feature is implemented for other purposes, not just unlocking the phone. iPhone owners from now on will use their face to authorize Apple Pay purchases or unlock certain apps.

Facial scanning in our daily life

It goes without saying that Apple isn’t the first company to introduce facial recognition to the masses, but it only takes one mainstream success to popularize the technology. In China, employees must scan their face to enter authorized levels of an office building, while luxurious hotels in Europe use facial scanning to identify celebrity guests.

U.S. citizens will also most likely run into this technology in airports, at some point. Five airports have already embraced facial recognition in order to reduce waiting times. Passengers are asked to stick their face in front of a camera and then the system browses through the database of people who provided their information and, if a match is found, the person can board the plane. This is considerably more effective than the manual checking.

Privacy concerns on the horizon

Although some people welcome this more refined form of biometric scanning, seeing it as a step towards hard-to-fool security measures, there is a large group of people who urge cautionbefore integrating the technology into every aspect of our life. In the case of the iPhone X, it is possible that someone holds the phone in front of the owner’s face to force easy access to its contents. Also, where is the biometric data being stored? In cloud storage that could be hacked, or on the phone? Not to mention companies utilizing facial scanning technology sit on a huge database of sensitive information that could be either stolen or sold.

As we’ve seen with Equifax, leading forces in the industry are proven to be sloppy at protecting the consumer’s precious data. Apple claimed that they don’t intend to share the biometric info with others and they have a history of refusing to hand out their customers’ data to government forces, not to mention the fact that their app store has pretty strong security. But even so, the technology is most likely to be picked up by other companies who may lack Apple’s strong commitment to consumer privacy.