IBM, one of the world’s oldest leaders in the technology and computing science industry, has ended up stopping their facial recognition program cold. Many of IBM’s facial recognition software was initially intended to identify people through videos, photos, and even real-time measures. However, in light of the recent protests and what has been going on with racial profiling, IBM ran away, scared from the project. But why?
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Racial Profiling Police Abuse
IBM has now abandoned their face recognition software, and that’s a win for everyone’s privacy.
IBM has determined, and even other companies such as Amazon and more, that racial profiling occurs in more than one application. One such claim that racial profiling with facial recognition is the police departments who are using it. However, when it comes to African Americans and even other ethnic minorities and women, and teenagers, facial recognition often has accuracy issues.
Because of this, due to the fear of it being used to find people by the police force, and other law-enforcing corporations, IBM has recognized the possibility of this inaccuracy to cause innocent people to become the victims of racial profiling, as well as the chance to get wrongfully arrested when they’re innocent.
How Does This Impact You?
Face recognition software to log into computers and phones may be a thing of the past very soon.
In all reality, it doesn’t. If you run a small business and have surveillance cameras through your managed service provider, you probably won’t even notice the change. However, some things, such as facial recognition login for computers, are pretty much going to cease. Windows 10 has a facial recognition feature called “Hello Face” to help you log in with your face. Microsoft ended up having a humongous library database of millions of faces to train their computers with the API. Many people didn’t know about it, but the act was a part of Microsoft, also pulling away from facial recognition software that was being sold to the police to train facial recognition software.
What Is Facial Recognition Still Used For?
Jeff Bezos wants to keep the software alive to battle human trafficking and to thwart attacks.
There are some things that Mr. Bezos is doing to better the change for facial recognition software. While it’s not allowing a company to use their facial recognition for police and other avenues, for the most part, it is still allowing their facial recognition to be used to help keep people from being trafficked. Since human trafficking is becoming a significant problem in the world with women and children, keeping this technology alone can help stop attackers (find them) and help find people who end up missing.
Legal Issues That Have Ensued Because of Facial Recognition
Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook was using facial recognition software to tag pictures, and they were sued for doing so.
Millions of people have been hurt by facial recognition. And the creators have faced numerous fines and lawsuits because of it. This is more than likely probably another reason why the major tech companies are opting out of the program – to keep their behinds covered!
Mark Zuckerberg got in trouble back in January of this year because people in Illinois ended up violating people’s privacy with their facial recognition for tagging suggestions. They ended up paying over $500 million for the settlements, which is more than even the Equifax breach back in 2017. Because of this, it can pretty much be assumed that companies don’t want to endure problems like this. Let alone the fact that when datasets from corporations like this can be breached, they could, in the wrong hands, end up being used for the wrong reasons (including identity theft).
Can I Still Use Facial Recognition for My Business?
There are still companies that use and utilize face recognition software every day. However, they are starting to understand the risks. All it takes is for someone to look like you, and voila – you have a problem. Many people fear the data risks, and while hackers can still be a problem, it’s more secure than many other biometric access control systems. What does this mean? It means that if you have security protocols in place for your business to allow access with facial recognition (such as front door locks, etc.), you’ll be fine and can continue to use them without worrying too much.
For the sake of safety, you may want to make sure that you utilize documents to protect yourself in any case (like a new employee signing an agreement that their face will be used for it).