In the ongoing War on Terror, multiple technologies have been used to identify and capture suspects. One such technology being brought forward is facial recognition systems. More importantly, facial recognition systems that are not owned and/or operated by the US government. In this case, the company Terrogence is privatizing the industry.
About the Company
Terrogence is a company that has been collecting facial recognition information for the past five years. Terrogence gathers their information from all of the giant social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. This sort of behavior has activists for privacy on edge. Terrogence has been bought by the Israeli company Verint in order for them to obtain the Face-Int product. Verint and Terrogence have been vendors of the US government for a long time. The products they have offered have always been cutting edge spy equipment for places like the NSA, CIA, Navy, and other such agencies and branches of military. It is important to note that their founder is a former Israeli intelligence officer.
What They Are Collecting
Terrogence says that they have collected over 35,000 videos and images showing people in terrorist training camps, motivational videos for terrorists, and from actual terrorist attack sites. The number is far more than 35,000 in reality due to the fact that the company has been collecting such information for the past five years.
Why It Is a Problem
According to former employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity, Terrogence also uses the information gathered for more political purposes. A comparison has been drawn to the recent uprising over the use of personal data by the firm Cambridge Analytica. Since companies like Facebook are so open to the public, Terrogence has basically been able to roam freely through profiles and collect any data they deem necessary. Jay Stanley of the ACLU cautioned against this technology saying “When you contemplate face recognition that’s everywhere, we have to think about what that’s going to mean for us. If private companies are scraping photos and combining them with personal info in order to make judgements about people – are you a terrorist, or how likely are you to be a shoplifter or anything in between – then it exposes everyone to the risk of being misidentified, or correctly identified and being misjudged.”
Civil Liberties Issues
Imagine being misidentified as a terrorist. It is one thing to have your privacy trampled on. It is another thing entirely if your privacy is violated and you are labeled a terrorist/criminal. Is facial recognition inherently racist and how accurate is it? Research has shown that facial recognition software is more accurate with white faces than those of minorities. The issue being raised is how often people are misidentified and apprehended based on false identification. Another issue raised is about how a private company can use the information gathered. This sort of technology in the private market makes for the ability to form private virtual blacklists that can be sold to any government willing to foot the bill.
China is already implementing a national facial recognition system. I think the main question should be the following – at what point does surveillance cross the line? We all should agree that apprehending terrorists is of paramount importance. That being said, does capturing and storing information about innocent citizens outweigh the search for terrorists/criminals?