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THE DANGERS OF FACIAL RECOGNITION

“Facebook’s Privacy Issues Are Even Deeper Than We Knew” was the headline at Forbes.com, just after the Black Hat Conference at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas in August 2011. A research team at Carnegie Mellon University had showed that Facebook had become a worldwide photo identification database.

Paired with related research, we’re looking at the prospect where good, bad, and ugly actors will be able to identify a face in a crowd and know sensitive personal information about that person.

It turns out that CMU searchers didn’t even have to log into Facebook to get to the photos there. They relied on just Facebook’s public profile information and off-the-shelf facial recognition software, then accessed profile information through Facebook’s search engine APIs. Nevertheless, they matched Facebook users with their pictures on otherwise anonymous Match.com accounts.

Drawing upon previous research, they were also relatively successful at guessing individuals’ Social Security numbers. From there, of course, it is just an automated click to your Google profile, LinkedIn work history, credit report, and many other slices of private information.

Two months later, the following headline appeared on Nextgov’s Web site (www.nextgov.com):

FBI TO LAUNCH NATIONWIDE

FACIAL RECOGNITION SERVICE

The article went on to state:

The FBI by mid-January [2012] will activate a nationwide facial recognition service in select states that will allow local police to identify unknown subjects in photos, bureau officials told Nextgov.…

Using the new Next-Generation Identification system that is under development, law enforcement analysts will be able to upload a photo of an unknown person; choose a desired number of results from two to 50 mug shots; and, within 15 minutes, receive identified mugs to inspect for potential matches.…

The planned addition of facial searches worries Sunita Patel, a staff attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, who said, “Any database of personal identity information is bound to have mistakes. And with the most personal immutable traits like our facial features and fingerprints, the public can’t afford a mistake.”

The article goes on to say that large-scale searches may generate a lot of false positives. Hmmm … might that happen with your picture, taken from your passport, a travel visa, any government ID, your driver’s license, your or someone else’s Web site, a dating site, or from Facebook (posted by you and/or your “friends”)?

THE NEXT STEP IN FACIAL RECOGNITION

The next step is the face-scanning glasses that the Brazilian police plan to wear at the 2014 World Cup. A small camera fitted to their glasses will be able to capture 400 facial images per second and send them to a central computer database storing up to 13 million faces. The system can compare biometric data at 46,000 points on a face and will immediately signal any matches to known criminals or people wanted by police.

In the future, this sort of thing won’t be limited to the police. Facebook has the largest collection of identified photographs in the world outside of a government, and they are currently at work on a major photo-tagging project.

HOW YOU COULD BE FALSELY TARGETED

Natick resident John Gass, who hadn’t had a traffic ticket in years, was astonished when he received a letter from the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles informing him to stop driving. His driver’s license had been revoked! According to the Web site www.boston.com (July 2011):

“I was shocked,” Gass said in a recent interview. “As far as I was concerned, I had done nothing wrong.” After frantic calls and a hearing with Registry officials, Gass learned the problem: An antiterrorism computerized facial recognition system that scans a database of millions of state driver’s license images had picked his as a possible fraud. It turned out Gass was flagged because he looks like another driver … and apparently, he has company. Last year, the facial recognition system picked out more than 1,000 cases that resulted in State Police investigations, officials say. And some of those people are guilty of nothing more than looking like someone else.

DOES YOUR DRIVER’S LICENSE MATCH THE STATE WHERE YOU LIVE?

After reading previous editions of this book, some of you moved to a new state, but kept your driver’s licenses from the old state. No one other than a cop or a car rental agent would of course know this, because you’ve been using only your passports when an ID was required.

However, what if a search of photos brings up your driver’s license? It will show that you are licensed in a state different from where you actually live. (This is not likely to happen, but it is possible.)

CAN FACIAL RECOGNITION BE DEFEATED?

Perhaps, but only with extreme effort. Facial recognition works by measuring the distance from your eyes to another point on your face, such as your hairline, the bottom of your chin, your cheekbones, or the edge of your mouth. This is more difficult if you:

• Wear a baseball cap.

• Wear tinted or dark glasses.

• Have facial hair.

• Have on dark eyeliner.

• Wear a ski mask (you wish!).

• Smile.

A smile? Yes, because a smile in a picture will distort the biometrics. Now you know why the clerk at the DMV tells you not to smile for the driver’s license photo. Smile anyway, and say, “I just can’t help it, I’m so happy to get my license renewed.”

If you are determined to post a picture of yourself anywhere on the Internet, you might consider a picture showing your profile, thus hiding your key measurements. Or, use a photograph where your head is just a small part of the picture, such as my own picture on the dust jacket of this book. The lack of definition will make precise measurements difficult.

Before you allow any of your friends to take a picture of you, hand them a card such as the one below.