EPIC Calls for Moratorium on Facial Recognition Technology (EPIC.org)
The Electronic Privacy Information Center has published its comments to the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC). "In the absence of guidelines and legal standards, EPIC recommends a moratorium on the commercial deployment of facial recognition techniques."
In the "absence of guidelines and legal standards," advocating for the development of guidelines and legal standards makes a lot more sense than a moratorium, and banning (however temporarily) a technology makes it impossible to gain the real-world experience necessary to develop informed, rational, reasonable and fair guidelines and standards.
Also, since biometric technologies including facial recognition, are useful in privacy protection, a moratorium on commercial facial recognition applications curtails an individual's right to make decisions about how to protect their own privacy in the most convenient and cost-effective way.
The EPIC document is long on risks and short on abuses. I noticed only two cases of abuse (one by Google and one by Facebook) cited in the entire 24 page document and a repetition of the Pitt-Patt red herring addressed here. Many, including EPIC, have found fault with what Google and Facebook have done with facial recognition technology. As EPIC notes, they acted in violation of their own privacy policies, i.e. they lied. What's facial recognition got to do with that?
Moratoriums and bans are seldom the best way to ameliorate a new technology's negative effects. EPIC fails to recommend an appropriate length of time for a moratorium and a moratorium without an end date is a ban. This is a disproportionate response to the risks EPIC cites in its comments. By advocating for such strong measures in response to the facts it cites, EPIC risks casting itself as a threat to individual rights (including the right to privacy) and courts skepticism of its motives.
For a couple of more balanced takes on the subject of facial recognition, see:
Face Recognition in the Era of the Cloud and Social Media: Is it Time to Hit the Panic Button?
by Joseph J. Atick and
Face Recognition: Improved Benefit? Or Erosion of Privacy? by Carl Gohringer
