Ethical Concerns over Facial Recognition Technology

Abstract

The article intends to discuss the impact of facial recognition (FR) technology by critically assessing the divergent viewpoints, expressed by the corporate world and by civil society in the news media, through the discourse analysis of representative textual samples. FR software is one of the most recent developments in the use of biometric data for identification. Its applications, which range from unlocking your smartphone, renting a car and taking an online exam to police monitoring of image databases, are strongly debated on opposite sides. Tech companies extol the level of security of biometric authentication when compared to simple usernames and passwords, claiming the quintessential authenticity of the human face. Voices of civil society and advocacy groups, instead, stress the risk of extended video surveillance and the legal vacuum that surrounds the technology. A main claim is that biometric face recognition is not exempt from bias, error rates and false positives. Besides, though still in a pilot stage, FR development towards the reading of emotions increases anxiety over its power to detect the signals that are wittingly or unwillingly sent in human face-to-face interaction. In the light of this socio-technical controversy, the article aims to reflect on today’s man-machine interactional configurations and their ethical impact, as the debate increasingly permeates public discourse.