Facial recognition

This emerging technology could be convenient – but can fears over reliability, privacy and bias be adequately addressed?

It’s the stuff of sweaty nightmares: you turn up late for an important meeting – then realise you’ve forgotten your access card. Cue an embarrassing phone plea to your boss. But soon offices around the globe may start using facial recognition systems that automatically let you in.

Biometrics has been quietly evolving – and now some systems can correctly identify a person 100% of the time. Increasingly, our faces can grant us access to foreign countries, our phones and our own bank accounts, and offices are the next logical step. Some companies are already experimenting; the Indian IT services giant Tech Mahindra allows employees to mark their attendance using facial recognition terminals.

But there’s a catch. The technology also has a well-documented potential for more invasive uses, such as identifying criminals and government surveillance. Recently Oakland and San Francisco voted to ban the use of facial recognition by city departments including the police amid privacy, bias and reliability concerns. Meanwhile, the UK is seeing its first legal challenge against police use of the technology. And there’s concern that its emergence in the workplace might allow companies to snoop on their employees’ thoughts and emotions. Seventy years after George Orwell published 1984, his predictions may be starting to come to life. 

This is one of the 101 indispensable things you need to know about work today. Click here to see the rest.

Image credit: Piero Zagami and Michela Nicchiotti.