COSMONAUT

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Facial Recognition

Itay Alon

Definition

Formally, facial or face recognition is defined as “the science which involves the understanding of how the faces are recognized by biological systems and how this can be emulated by computer systems” (Martinez 2009). It is a biometric technique to uniquely identify a person by comparing and analyzing patterns based on their "facial contours"; in other words, it is a method of identifying or confirming a person's identity from their face. Other types of biometric software include voice recognition, fingerprint recognition, and retinal or iris recognition.

Orenda Graphic

Recruitment

While the use of facial recognition technology could help recruiters streamline some processes, it is hard to believe that the long-standing issues of recruiting could be solved through algorithms knowing that existing datasets could perpetuate or even worsen the current biases that a human recruiter can have.

Maksim Turkov

Policing

Law enforcement officials around the world are using Facial Recognition Technology (FRT) to identify suspects, conduct arrests, and determine guilt through system matches. It is also being used as a tool for border control purposes, to perform identity verifications, and to monitor the safety of people in public spaces. The use of FRT by police and other law enforcement officials, however, has been pointing out the problems regarding the fairness and legitimacy of this tool.

John Romeio

Education

The use of facial recognition technology has increased recently and has been implemented in different levels of our societies, including education. Several schools in different countries have been adopting this technology. However, the use of this tool can be dangerous because of the inaccurancy of this method and for normalizing surveillance, especially in an environment such as schools.

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Our Series

Facial Recognition & Recruitment

By Gabriel Obando-Chacon & Yannick Stadtfeld • August 27, 2021
While the use of facial recognition technology could help recruiters streamline some processes, it is hard to believe that the long-standing issues of recruiting could be solved through algorithms knowing that existing datasets could perpetuate or even worsen the current biases that a human recruiter can have.

Facial Recognition & Policing

By Sriya Sridhar & Daniel Rodríguez Maffioli & Alice Bryk Silveira • August 27, 2021
Law enforcement officials around the world are using Facial Recognition Technology (FRT) to identify suspects, conduct arrests, and determine guilt through system matches. It is also being used as a tool for border control purposes, to perform identity verifications, and to monitor the safety of people in public spaces. The use of FRT by police and other law enforcement officials, however, has been pointing out the problems regarding the fairness and legitimacy of this tool.

Facial Recognition & Education

By Luísa Franco Machado & Alice Bryk Silveira • August 27, 2021
The use of facial recognition technology has increased recently and has been implemented in different levels of our societies, including education. Several schools in different countries have been adopting this technology. However, the use of this tool can be dangerous because of the incurancy of this method and for normalizing surveillance, especially in an environment such as schools.

Facial Recognition: An Introduction

By Elena Beretta & Nasir Muftić • August 27, 2021
Facial recognition technologies are an application of artificial intelligence and machine learning, thus they are not exempted from showing biases that in some cases have led to discriminatory results.

Resisting Facial Recognition

By Franesca Scapolo • April 24, 2021
Recently more and more organisations have taken a stand against facial recognition, stressing how this violates people's human rights. Campaigns have been launched to ask governments and local authorities to ban the use of such technology worldwide. We decided to list some we think it is worth watching out for (and that you might want to sign).

Digital Tracing and COVID-19 - The Israeli Case

By Alice Bryk Silveira • April 11, 2021
Israel has been the only western democracy which used secret service tools to fight the Coronavirus. The challenges presented by the pandemic put in balance human rights as privacy, freedom and health. Many countries find digital tracing a method to contain the propagation of the virus. However, this approach has confronted human rights.
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