New iPhone brings face recognition (and fears) to the masses
New iPhone brings face recognition (and fears) to the
masses
By Rob Lever October 28, 2017
Washington (AFP) - Apple will let you unlock the iPhone X
with your face -- a move likely to bring facial recognition to the masses,
along with concerns over how the technology may be used for nefarious purposes.
Apple's newest device, set to go on sale November 3, is
designed to be unlocked with a facial scan with a number of privacy safeguards
-- as the data will only be stored on the phone and not in any databases.
Unlocking one's phone with a face scan may offer added
convenience and security for iPhone users, according to Apple, which claims its
"neural engine" for FaceID cannot be tricked by a photo or hacker.
While other devices have offered facial recognition,
Apple is the first to pack the technology allowing for a three-dimensional scan
into a hand-held phone.
But despite Apple's safeguards, privacy activists fear
the widespread use of facial recognition would "normalize" the
technology and open the door to broader use by law enforcement, marketers or
others of a largely unregulated tool.
"Apple has done a number of things well for privacy
but it's not always going to be about the iPhone X," said Jay Stanley, a
policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union.
"There are real reasons to worry that facial
recognition will work its way into our culture and become a surveillance
technology that is abused."
A study last year by Georgetown University researchers
found nearly half of all Americans in a law enforcement database that includes
facial recognition, without their consent.
Civil liberties groups have sued over the FBI's use of
its "next generation" biometric database, which includes facial
profiles, claiming it has a high error rate and the potential for tracking
innocent people.
"We don't want police officers having a watch list
embedded in their body cameras scanning faces on the sidewalk," said
Stanley.
Clare Garvie -- the Georgetown University Law School
associate who led the 2016 study on facial recognition databases -- agreed that
Apple is taking a responsible approach but others might not.
"My concern is that the public is going to become
inured or complacent about this," Garvie said.
- Advertisers, police, porn stars -
Widespread use of facial recognition "could make our
lives more trackable by advertisers, by law enforcement and maybe someday by
private individuals," she said.
Garvie said her research found significant errors in law
enforcement facial recognition databases, opening up the possibility someone
could be wrongly identified as a criminal suspect.
Another worry, she said, is that police could track
individuals who have committed no crime simply for participating in
demonstrations.
Shanghai and other Chinese cities have recently started
deploying facial recognition to catch those who flout the rules of the road,
including jaywalkers.
Facial recognition and related technologies can also be
used by retail stores to identify potential shoplifters, and by casinos to
pinpoint undesirable gamblers.
It can even be used to deliver personalized marketing
messages -- and could have some other potentially unnerving applications.
Last year, a Russian photographer figured out how to
match the faces of porn stars with their social media profiles to
"doxx" them, or reveal their true identities.
This type of use "can create huge problems,"
said Garvie. "We have to consider the worst possible uses of the
technology."
Apple's system uses 30,000 infrared dots to create a
digital image which is stored in a "secure enclave," according to a
white paper issued by the company on its security. It said the chances of a
"random" person being able to unlock the device are one in a million,
compared with one in 50,000 for its TouchID.
- Legal battle brewing -
Apple's FaceID is likely to touch off fresh legal battles
about whether police can require someone to unlock a device.
FaceID "brings the company deeper into a legal
debate" that stemmed from the introduction of fingerprint identification
on smartphones, according to ACLU staff attorney Brett Max Kaufman.
Kaufman says in a blog post that courts will be grappling
with the constitutional guarantees against unreasonable searches and
self-incrimination if a suspect is forced to unlock a device.
US courts have generally ruled that it would violate a
user's rights to give up a passcode because it is "testimonial" --
but that situation becomes murkier when biometrics are applied.
Apple appears to have anticipated this situation by
allowing a user to press two buttons for two seconds to require a passcode, but
Garvie said court battles over compelling the use of FaceID are likely.
Regardless of these concerns, Apple's introduction is
likely to bring about widespread use of facial recognition technology.
"What Apple is doing here will popularize and get
people more comfortable with the technology," said Patrick Moorhead,
principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, who follows the sector.
"If I look at Apple's track record of making things
easy for consumers, I'm optimistic users are going to like this."
Garvie added it is important to have conversations about
facial recognition because there is little regulation governing the use of the
technology.
"The technology may well be inevitable," she
said.
"It is going to become part of everyone's lives if
it isn't already."
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