Co-administrator of the facial recognition program for the Pinellas County (Fla.) Sheriff's Office, Scott McCallum, displays a method of facial mapping used to set criteria for facial image searches. The sheriff's office uses one of the most advanced facial recognition programs for law enforcement in the country. (By Edward Linsmier for The Washington Post, 2013 file)
Ben Sobel is a researcher and incoming Google Policy Fellow at the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law.
Being anonymous in public might be a thing of the past. Facial recognition technology is already being deployed to let brick-and-mortar stores scan the face of every shopper, identify returning customers and offer them individualized pricing — or find “pre-identified shoplifters” and “known litigious individuals.” Microsoft has patented a billboard that identifies you as you walk by and serves ads personalized to your purchase history. An app called NameTag claims it can identify people on the street just by looking at them through Google Glass.
Privacy advocates and representatives from companies like Facebook and Google are meeting in Washington on Thursday to try to set rules for how companies should use this powerful technology. They may be forgetting that a good deal of it could already be illegal.
There are no federal laws that specifically govern the use of facial recognition technology. But while few people know it, and even fewer are talking about it, both Illinois and Texas have laws against using such technology to identify people without their informed consent. That means that one out of every eight Americans currently has a legal right to biometric privacy.
The Illinois law is facing the most public test to date of what its protections mean for facial recognition technology. A lawsuit filed in Illinois trial court in April alleges Facebook violates the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act by taking users’ faceprints “without even informing its users — let alone obtaining their informed written consent.” This suit, Licata v. Facebook, could reshape Facebook’s practices for getting user consent, and may even influence the expansion of facial recognition technology.
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