Big Brother or necessary surveillance – does facial recognition tech infringe on our privacy and civil rights?

Police, governments and even shops around the world are keeping tabs on people through AI-assisted facial recognition systems

In the United States the FBI has 30 million citizens on its facial recognition database, while China’s is said to contain almost the whole population

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Cameras that use facial recognition technology are becoming more common around the world, but are they a breach of our civil rights? Photo: Alamy

Published: 1:00am, 31 Aug 2019Updated: 7:26pm, 1 Sep 2019

Many people worried about facial recognition technology have focused their attention on the popular application FaceApp which, among its other functions, allows users to see what they will look like when they get older.

FaceApp, a morphing application described as a program that “will transform your face using AI in just one tap” by its Russian developers, went viral in 2017 with around 80 million users.

To make it work, users select a selfie that is then uploaded to the company’s servers, where its proprietary technology processes it.

Rumours that FaceApp was storing selfies on its server to use as data for undisclosed facial recognition purposes connected to the Russian government abounded, but they proved to be unfounded.

Screenshots from FaceApp. There have been rumours that Russia was collecting people’s selfies through this app. Photo: courtesy of FaceApp

FaceApp uses Amazon servers in the United States to store users’ images, and the company seemingly has no links to the Russian authorities.

Nonetheless, the rumours, which were widely reported, served to bring the issue of facial recognition technology into the limelight.

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