Face Off & Then Some

Within the next few years, we, the people, will have our faces scanned and put into a database courtesy of a universal face recognition software program the FBI will be giving to local police. 

The new facial recognition software is unique in that it will hook up any agency that makes use of it to a central database. The software will allow access to a “Universal Face Workstation” where the officers can compare any given photo against 12.8 million photos in the database. Moreover, police will also be able to add further context to the images on the database by cross-referencing them with other images.

FBI claims that it will include only the photos of booked criminals in the database and that it wouldn’t take the images from social media sites to enhance its image repository. However, to many, this seems too good to be true. Critics have cited that this would inevitably lead to an infringement on the basic rights of the citizens.

While reading this claim of artificial limits being placed on the code, the end around this limitation will begin with the police stating they need to be able to put local criminals into the system the FBI does NOT have in their database, thus allowing, in effect, the app to be expanded to include anyone who's face falls under the gaze of the ubiquitous cameras that are going up in towns and cities throughout the US. 

But there's more.

In addition to privacy concerns, UAW has another weak spot: It still isn’t that great at tracking people. Last year, the Wall Street Journal reported how human analysts still trump machines when it comes to comparing and identifying people from photographs. Poor quality images or bad lighting, for instance, can render facial recognition almost useless.

One thing that is true is that the software is advancing rapidly—and developments show no sign of slowing down. Aside from the FBI’s facial network software, companies are turning to facial recognition technology to take snapshots of shoppers in order to offer them customized deals linked to Facebook preferences. It’s enough to make you reluctant to show your face in public again. As Anonymous hacktivists have pointed out in a new video, however, there are some alternatives. Options include walking about with your head tilted at a 15 degree angle, caking your face in make-up, or wearing a plastic mask.

When this tech is combined with the NSA's construction of the largest spy center in the world in Utah, the notion of our right to privacy, though not explicitly written in the Constitution, becomes but a dream forever relegated to the dustbin of history.

But new pioneers have quietly begun moving into the area, secretive outsiders who say little and keep to themselves. Like the pious polygamists, they are focused on deciphering cryptic messages that only they have the power to understand. Just off Beef Hollow Road, less than a mile from brethren headquarters, thousands of hard-hatted construction workers in sweat-soaked T-shirts are laying the groundwork for the newcomers’ own temple and archive, a massive complex so large that it necessitated expanding the town’s boundaries. Once built, it will be more than five times the size of the US Capitol.

Rather than Bibles, prophets, and worshippers, this temple will be filled with servers, computer intelligence experts, and armed guards. And instead of listening for words flowing down from heaven, these newcomers will be secretly capturing, storing, and analyzing vast quantities of words and images hurtling through the world’s telecommunications networks. In the little town of Bluffdale, Big Love and Big Brother have become uneasy neighbors.

The surveillance state looms.