Amazon has been increasingly involved with the development of facial recognition technology for its own use and for sale to others. Recently, the popular press has begun to pay attention to the possible misuses and abuses of the technology. With Amazon (as with a similar matter with Google technology in China), there have been internal objections to the expansion of the technology, particularly where it’s used for enforcement purposes, as with identification of illegal immigrants.
New Yorker recently published this excellent article describing the many uses of identification by biometric criteria, and also the technology’s potential weaponization, particularly by oppressive governments. From an enforcement or proactive standpoint, two benefits of facial identification are that it can be applied remotely and without the consent of those being watched. Potential abuse is simply not enough of a disincentive to keep such a useful methodology from being perfected and used.
Interestingly enough Amazon, not governmental entities, is getting most of the attention — perhaps because of the prosaic (at least on the surface) manner in which the Company proposes to (apparently casually) use biometrics to solve problems. In this case, Amazon would use biometrics to protect customers from having their deliveries stolen before they can pick them up. An admirable purpose, but the perfection of remote monitoring by private entities and governments is a bottomless source of potential abuse.
Unfortunately, facial recognition and biometrics are not unique in terms of the potential for misuse. Another example is 3-D printers. They can produce prosthetics at minimum cost which vastly expands the population that can live a normal life after major injuries or illness. But the printers can also make guns that can be easily hidden and transported.
This technology is already ubiquitous. It’s simply too useful and accessible not to be used. Taylor Swift has been using facial Identification to screen the crowds at her concerts to detect one of the hundred or so of her known stalkers.
Abycats' Thoughts 