Smile, you pay. MasterCard announced last week that it has entered the testing phase for its new “Smile and Pay” product, which makes it possible to pay using face recognition. Around the world, facial recognition is becoming ground. Impressive but intrusive technology, its use is advancing faster than the laws that accompany it. Whether your phone is unlocked or a quick transfer is issued, our faces are increasingly being monitored, disconnected, and saved. “Commercial use, such as unlocking your phone or contributing to the acceptance of this payment system, is slowly advancing towards political use,” noted Asma Malla, a lecturer at SciencePo and a political scientist on digital economics.
Facial recognition is a technique that uses biometric data to create a template for the user’s face. Then, an artificial intelligence uses this data to identify or authenticate this person, that is, to find a person or confirm who he or she claims to be. Around the world, some countries have already installed it in public life, making it easier to buy tickets on the metro to reduce waiting time, but also for population monitoring.
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China: Face to face
“China is the country where facial recognition is most widely used,” the expert analyzed. The Chinese state CCTV system uses it to identify and track citizens on the streets. Those who are considered “rude” may have their “social credit” reduced and may be prohibited from taking certain activities, such as flying or taking bank credit. “Oral recognition allows industrialization of what omnipotent states are already doing by filing a population,” the lecturer explained.
However, this is not all, recognition is also used in daily life. Franchisees like KFC use it as a way to pay at their order kiosks and ATMs also use it to authenticate customers. A decryption of France 24 reveals that the tablets were used to authenticate the payment of retirement pensions and open access to health insurance to citizens in the villages. Metro has also been tested for traffic flow at the entrance. What can be done in the Moscow metro in the same pattern.
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Russia: Political repression
In Russia, too, facial recognition is used in everyday life. Payment can also be made through facial recognition at the shopping center or on the metro. Since last year, 241 stations on Moscow’s underground network have allowed people to pay with their mouths. The official reasons are the same: to make the arrival and departure of metro users more fluid, about 2.5 billion passengers a year. But like in China, the biggest use of facial recognition is for surveillance. CCTV cameras track and identify criminals and political opponents. During a demonstration in support of Alexei Navalny, protesters were identified using this technology and then arrested at their home.
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Europe: 11 countries use facial recognition
Within the European Union, 11 countries are already using face recognition for legal applications, on different scales (see map above). A survey commissioned by environmental MEPs in October 2021 provides a summary of the use of biometric data within the union. The purpose of this report is to warn of potential mass biological surveillance, as the increasing use of technology such as face recognition to monitor and identify individuals on the street. This is especially true of Nice, which is experimenting with facial recognition during Nice Carnival 2019. “The main argument of the defenders of oral recognition is security, but it is foolish to oppose freedom and security,” said Asma Malla. Proposed European law on artificial intelligence is very limited for commercial use of intelligence, but tender with police use.
An example is Lithuania. The European country plans to install face recognition points on its external borders, before Lithuania Bank reached an agreement with a local start-up to install the technology as biometric identification. In France, surveillance equipment using facial recognition is still banned in public spaces, but many politicians are pushing for testing. “And we know that experiments can lead to generalizations,” he said.
A risky technology
Facial recognition technologies are also struggling to understand their effectiveness. “These technologies have never proven their reliability, Asma Malla believes. Especially on specific populations.” A 2019 study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) found that these technologies were about 10 to 100 times more common in Asians or blacks than in Caucasians.