Facial recognition, Riya, and multifaceted people

Today I attended a talk entitled “The Promise and Problem of Facial Recognition Technology” the short synopsis is:

What is facial recognition technology? How does it work, where did it come from, and why is it considered a “security solution”? This talk will unpack the black box of automated facial recognition, examining what it says about the development of information technology in a security-obsessed society.

Kelly Gates is assistant professor of media studies at the CUNY, Queens College. She is currently working on a book manuscript titled, Our Biometric Future, which traces the social construction of computerized facial recognition and other biometrics from their late nineteenth century antecedents to the preoccupation with these technologies in the immediate post–9/11 moment.

It was an interesting topic & I’m addressing the surveillance issue in my work on social bookmarks as well. She said, and it seems obvious, that facial recognition technology has been used by and marketed to government and corporate entities for security, surveillance, and access control purposes.

But Riya is a departure from that. It’s a consumer use for the technology that does not necessarily link information from a database to that face, just a name. In a way it could be empowering to know where your own image is on the internet – although that wouldn’t give you control it could be helpful to be aware of. Although, it is somewhat disconcerting to think that a potential employer (or a stalker, or ex) could find images of you at a party or other situations.

What I hope is that long term there is more of a general tolerance for people’s full multifaceted existence. Clearly no one is only a professional, they are also a friend, a confidant, a wife, a sister, a colleague, a mentor and many other roles, moods and in many different situations through life. Also, everyone had an adolescence. While I’m glad I didn’t have a blog when I was 15, when I’m in a position to hire someone in the future, if their adolescent angst pops up on archive.org it will probably be a commonplace rather than an offense and I won’t hold it against them.