There has been opposition to facial scanning and recognition being used by retailers and their ability to keep information. The primary concern for the opposing groups is that their shopping information or statistics shouldn’t be utilized by any other party as they tend to have sensitive information regarding personal lives.
Nine groups were initially after the facial recognition and they were lobbying to make this technology illegal in consumer but they hit a brick wall in their movement as a security of credit cards demands that facial recognition be used. Now the groups have said that the shopkeepers need to ask permission from the customers or inform them at least if they want to keep their biometric profile and consumer history in their databases.
The retailers, on the other hand, believe that they are using it for customer’s own benefit. It will allow them to offer person-centric deals and offers while also catching potential fraudulent users of credit cards. It can also be used to catch shoplifters and other criminals with a tarnished history.
Despite the common belief, it is not a technology that is one for the future as it has been in use for more than one and a half years. The biggest concern of any person would be that this information can do more bad than good. People can be profiled and targeted according with the help of this tool. The biggest example of using the facial recognition system’s data is Facebook itself. It uses our activity from cookies to analyze our data and then show us related adverts.
Another thing associated with the abuse of this technology is that faces cannot be changed and therefore categorizing people with the same face is invasive and unethical. How would you feel if someone were to analyze your face and keep records of what you buy next to it?