• 11/9 Essay: Read this November 2nd article on a change in use of facial recognition technology by Meta (formerly Facebook) (hat tip to Arthur). What are your general thoughts on government and private company utilization of technologies that are able to recognize a face and/or match a human face from a digital image or a video frame against a database of faces? What advantages or benefits could/do such technologies provide? What role (if any) should a government play in regulating their use by individuals or companies?
• This event ties into the last lecture we watched by Jaron Lanier. In the lecture, he talks about how speech translation algorithms like Google’s are “stealing” millions of translations done by people who use Google services in order to fuel Google translate with large datasets. Lanier is against this because it does not create jobs, and the people whose translations are being used are not credited or paid in any way.
• Facebook’s face recognition works the same way. Users are giving permission to Facebook when they sign up, but contributing to face recognition is not the reason that people use Facebook. The company is “stealing” faces for their datasets, like Google is “stealing” translations for theirs.
• However, Facebook has decided to delete the faceprints they’ve collected from their users, which total to over one billion unique faceprints. All of the reasons that led to this decision are unknown, but it is likely an effect of the government’s investigation into Facebook’s malpractice. This would likely be seen by Lanier as a step in the right direction, depending on what Facebook, or Meta, replaces this data collection with.
• In my opinion, this move is for PR only, just like changing their name is (a name like Facebook sure feels creepy when you know what data they’re collecting). Rather than choosing a more ethical method of data collection, I’m sure Facebook will opt for something sketchier (and cheaper) until the government starts to nag them again and they jump ship to the next name.
• In general, I find facial recognition hard to justify. It’s difficult for me to draw lines or find reasons why a service would need it, especially a private one.
• In terms of regulations, I’m glad that the government is cracking down on Facebook because there’s no other way to get them to change how they conduct their business. On the other hand, Facebook is also benefitting from these trials. They are unwilling to change unless the government says they must by creating legislation restricting certain practices. This legislation then applies to Facebook’s competitors as well. That’s how Facebook is also benefitting, in a way. This is kind of a tangent, but I do find it interesting how the government and Facebook are interacting. Anyways, for a huge company like Facebook, the only party that can strongarm them into changing is the government. Of course, there’s competing companies, and public opinion, but in terms of swift action and effective change, legislation is the best way to prevent Facebook’s malpractice.
• There are a few issues I can think of with regulation. Of course, the government itself can also be the perpetrator of this malpractice, which makes it difficult to think of how to make sure these entities are balanced. The government can also be too strict in internet regulation, such as with acts like COPPA in the past that have been seen as too restrictive. I don’t know the answers to these issues, but they’re important to keep in mind when talking about regulation. Some of the issues come from ignorance and lack of computer literacy, and having legislation written by people who better understand the systems they are regulating could improve future regulation.