Everyone and their moms are reportedly building a pair of smart glasses now, including Facebook. However, a BuzzFeed News report notes that Facebook is apparently thinking about building facial recognition in its next AR glasses. Um, no thanks.
At an internal meeting, Andrew Bosworth, vice president of augmented and virtual reality at Facebook, said the social media giant was considering whether it had the legal capacity to include facial recognition features in its AR glasses. According to Buzzfeed, Bosworth said that facial recognition “can be the thorniest issue, where the benefits are so clear and the risks are so clear, and we don’t know where to balance things.” His comment was in response to an employee’s question about whether this technology had the potential for “real-world damage”, specifically harassment. As for the potential benefits, Bosworth pointed out to secretly look for the name of an acquaintance if you had forgotten it or had facial blindness.
There is a lot to unpack here. To begin with, it is not encouraging that comments seem to focus on the legality of whether facial recognition should be included in these smart AR glasses, rather than the ethical implications. The infamous incident in which a pair of Google Glass were ripped off a woman’s face in a bar triggered a national conversation about the privacy implications of smart glasses – and those no has facial recognition. Facial recognition, even if used for “benign” reasons, presents a much greater ethical dilemma.
It is unclear, for example, whether anyone could choose not to be included in any database that Facebook would use to enable this feature. It would be very hideous if you were walking outside and unknowingly passed by an idiot who could learn your name and potentially access your Facebook profile on a 2-second date. Consent must be at the forefront of any facial recognition technology, so it’s uncomfortable that BuzzFeed reported that Bosworth apparently criticized Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), which requires all companies that collect biometric data to obtain consent before doing so. In January, Facebook was ordered to pay a $ 650 million settlement in a class action lawsuit in Illinois, alleging that the company violated BIPA by collecting facial recognition data without consent.
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With all this in mind, it is disconcerting that Facebook even considers including the technology on a device that already has a history of unsettling people. That said, it is not certain that Facebook will end up including facial recognition in its smart glasses. In a tweet after the BuzzFeed report, Bosworth acknowledged that facial recognition is “an extremely controversial topic” and that the company would have a “public discussion of the pros and cons”. He also emphasized that Facebook’s smart glasses “would be fine without [facial recognition] but there were some interesting use cases, if that could be done in a way that the public and regulators were comfortable with. ”
The last part is the crux of the matter here. Facial recognition is still a hotly debated technology, and by no means is there a social consensus on how it should be used. Earlier this month, Police banned in Minneapolis the use of facial recognition technology and, in November, the The Los Angeles Police Department did the same. In total, 13 cities across the US they have banned local law enforcement from using the technology. Many cities, Including San Francisco and Boston, also banned government use of facial recognition. And even if – and it’s a big if – people and lawmakers miraculously approached technology before Facebook’s early launch of these smart glasses later this year, the Facebook of all companies doesn’t have the greatest privacy history.
Simply put, society is barely heating up with the idea of putting extremely simple smart glasses on their faces – let alone a pair with facial recognition. Devices like these have failed before, and will likely fail againbecause no company has so far managed to convince consumers that this is a gadget that they absolutely need. If Facebook wants to do it right, it will launch a pair of smart glasses that will solve consumers’ problems – not a pair that immediately drops an entire barrel of worms.