Who's watching me? (Cyberwise).Q Since Sept. 11 there's been a lot of talk about facial-recognition technology. How does this work and is it accurate? --S. Dennis Moreno Valley, CA You're right. Since Sept. 11, government agencies and companies have become laser-focused on technology as a security solution. Typically used for identity verification Noun 1. identity verification - the automatic identification of living individuals by using their physiological and behavioral characteristics; "negative identification can only be accomplished through biometric identification"; "if a pin or password is lost or , the technology has been adopted by cities like New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of and Virginia Beach Virginia Beach, resort city (1990 pop. 393,069), independent and in no county, SE Va., on the Atlantic coast; inc. 1906. In 1963, Princess Anne co. and the former small town of Virginia Beach were merged, giving the present city an area of 302 sq mi (782 sq km). , Florida, in an attempt to fight crime and threats of terrorism. This is the way the technology works in simple terms: A digital camera takes an image of a person and relays that information to a computer database. The computer searches for a certain number of facial characteristics on the individual and compares that image to those of known or suspected criminals. If they find a match, well, you know the rest. Is the technology reliable? To date, the technology has had limited success and according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. some experts is not reliable. In a recent conversation with Bruce Kasanoff, author of Making It Personal: How to Profit from Personalization Custom tailoring information to the individual. On the Web, personalization means returning a page that has been customized for the user, taking into consideration that person's habits and preferences. without Invading Privacy (Perseus, $26.00), the issue of reliability and the misuse of the technology were of concern. "I've yet to see facial recognition Noun 1. facial recognition - biometric identification by scanning a person's face and matching it against a library of known faces; "they used face recognition to spot known terrorists" automatic face recognition, face recognition technology that adds more value than it causes problems," says Kasanoff. "This is not reliable technology and anyone telling you that it is is walking a dangerous line...." Kasanoff also expressed his fear that particular groups would be targeted. "It's not supposed to be profiling but it ends up being profiling." I tend to agree with Kasanoff and other critics but the public, for the most part, seems willing to embrace the promise of increased security.--Sonya A. Donaldson |
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