Facial Recognition

Hey guys, this post isn’t going to be about games much. I just wanted to get my opinions out on something that is slightly terrifying. A post from Koi Lovers Paradise that I read recently was about facial recognition. The post was titled Face to Face. In the post, they talked about facial recognition software, and how it can be harmful or helpful. They said that while facial recognition could be used to keep order or be helpful with security, it’s also possible it could be used for harm. It would be possible for the government to keep tabs on every person, as long as there are cameras nearby. That means that going into any major city and possible even small cities and towns would get you tracked. If the government decided to abuse this technology, it would be terrifying. Any stoplight could have a camera that tracks your every movement. It could track where you ate lunch at, where you bought groceries from, what video games you bought, everything. Not only does that feel like a complete breach of personal privacy, the government could do malicious things with that info. For example, if a camera recognized your face at a protest demonstration, the government would know what you were protesting about, and while they might not be able to do much, what would happen if they made protesting illegal? They could track you down and easily arrest you. This seems all dystopian Sci-Fi, but it’s really something to worry about. As technology gets more and more advanced, we’re getting closer to all the Big Brother 1987 governments that we right about in fiction. Before facial recognition, it was unfeasible for the government to watch everyone. However, with advancing technology, a malicious government could watch every person autonomously, with very little manpower, using only computers. In fact, it’s sort of happening right now, in China.

In China, there is a system called the Social Credit System. Basically, each citizen is in a large database, and each person has a social score. Doing things the government approves of gives you a higher score, and can give you discounts or access to better jobs. However, doing things the government disapproves of can limit you. Certain jobs would be denied based on your score, and if you’re low enough, they even limit how much you can travel. It’s straight out of a Sci-Fi novel, yet it’s actually happening. Cameras around cities track the citizens based on facial recognition software, and then it detects who is around them and what they are doing. Being around people with low social scores will lower your own score. Essentially, the Chinese government is using cameras and facial recognition software to track it’s citizens, and rate them based on how well they are listening to the government. This is a total complete breach of privacy, and the government is overstepping it’s bounds. We should be doing everything in our power to prevent this from happening in the U.S., and stop it from happening in China.

Luckily, it seems that from the article that Koi Lovers Paradise referenced that the U.S. is trying to regulate facial recognition software. This is good for the people, as it means that it’s less likely we’re going to be in some dystopian society that tracks everyone, and arrests people that resist the government. The future we should be aiming for should be a future of freedom. Anyone should be able to go where they please and talk how they want, without worrying about being arrested or having rights taken away. Hopefully facially recognition software isn’t used for anything malicious in the future.