Is facial recognition bare-faced cheek?

There is often a battle between security and convenience; between technology assisting and intruding.

Elizabeth Denham’s blog addresses the need to find a balance in the use of facial recognition, and in particular live facial recognition (LFR).

Most of us are happy for this technology to unlock our phones or speed up passport control. We are less happy to have information about us collected, analysed and processed without our consent whilst out in public.

One example of LFR is cameras tied to billboards presenting targeted advertising on the people it determines are “engaged”.

Six investigations by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) into proposed LFR systems found that none could “fully justify the processing and, of those systems that went live, none were fully compliant with the requirements of data protection law. All of the organisations chose to stop, or not proceed with, the use of LFR”.

Here is the blog and Commissioner’s Opinion.