People are being watched even if they don’t like it. There are cameras in stores, in streets and even in our own homes. Phone applications are more intrusive than ever before. The terms of service are always changing, but even so is the desired for more technology. Today more and more applications are requiring access to our phones’ cameras and microphones and what consumers do is agree to everything they want to access in order to get a little taste of what it is to have such apps. Rory Celian-Jones is a technology correspondent from BBC News; in his new article called “Blippar wants your face in its app” he introduced the application that will use facial recognition. This new application will be able to capture a person’s face and let the user know the name and personal information. “[t]he app will also recognize people – in real life or in photos and videos.” Nobody is going to feel more secure and more well observe than with this app from Blippar.
This brings an ethical concern not only for the user, but also for everyone who might get their face saved in the app. It will be recognized and give away personal information that only the user should have access to. The implementation and the addition of “more than 70,000 “public figures” recognizable by the app” means that at any moment everyone who has Bliippar will be able to identify and recognize someone’s “social media profiles and Wikipedia entries.” At the same time looking at this at a different prospective, the app will come in handy in circumstances that are in need of identification. Calian-Jones gives some examples of why people should be feeling uneasy about this kind of app. To begin with, nobody likes the idea of “a stranger … com[ing] up to you and scan[ning] your face to find out more about you”. Having your own face in a pool of pictures ready to be selected is kind of creepy. Not only that, but people will be at risk of being followed and have a higher risk of being targeted by others. Even Google knew that having that feature in Google Glass was an intrusion to privacy. It is good to know that Blippar takes their users into consideration and the people that might be affected by such an app by letting them decide whether or not they want their face stored on Blippar’s servers. Something that I found interesting is that Celian-Jones mentioned something so true to everyone. It is not clear “why people will find facial recognition compelling”, but as people get older and as many begin to forget who they are, it can help them know who they are and where they live. If this technology is used well it can become a great benefit to older people and for the police to find criminals. It is intrusive, but people get used to this kind of technology everyday, before people weren’t confortable walking down the street because their every move was being watched and recorded, now this app is going to have the same capabilities to do that but in a faster way.
2 Comments
Nichole
12/18/2016 12:58:47 pm
Something interesting about facial recognition programs is that people usually willingly "pitch in" their faces and information. Google came out with a "fun" site that would try and guess the age of the face inputted. This information was used to improve Googles facial recognition software, but how many really knew that their information would be used? When you fist visited the page it would tell you what the purpose of the program was and if you read it, it was pretty clear that they were using the info to improve facial recognition. I think that Blippar is a bit invasive in a way, but is it any more invasive that standard internet search engines?
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Brandon E
12/19/2016 03:14:06 am
I suppose the difference between a person having this in an app, versus collecting it themselves, is convenience. People don't realize how much public information is already out there and can be found with digging.
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AuthorI transferred to CSUMB in the Spring 2016 from Hartnell Community College. I'm currently working towards my bachelor's in Network and Security and minor in Business Administration. Archives
December 2016
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