A recent report by BuzzFeed News claims that social media giant Facebook is considering incorporating face recognition technology into its upcoming smartwatch product.
In a recent report titled “Facebook considers face recognition for its upcoming smart glasses”, BuzzFeed News writes that social media giant Facebook is discussing incorporating face recognition into its upcoming smart glasses product and weighing the legal implications of the technology, according to executives at a internal meeting this week.
BuzzFeed News writes:
Andrew Bosworth, Facebook’s vice president for augmented and virtual reality, told employees at a scheduled company-wide meeting that the company is currently assessing whether it has the legal authority to offer face recognition on devices that will reportedly be launched later this year. Nothing has been decided, he said, and he noted that current state laws could make it impossible for Facebook to search for people based on photos of their faces.
“Face recognition … can be the most difficult problem, where the benefits are so clear, and the risks so clear, and we do not know where to balance things,” Bosworth said in response to an employee’s question whether people would be able to “mark their faces as unfathomable” when smart glasses become a common technology. The unnamed worker specifically emphasized the fear about the possibility of ‘actual damage’, including ‘stalkers’.
Following the publication of this story, Bosworth wrote on Twitter that ‘we have been open about our efforts to build [augmented reality] glasses and is still in the early stages. ”
“Face recognition is a very controversial topic and for good reason, and what I was talking about was how we would have to have a very public discussion about the pros and cons,” he said.
Bosworth reportedly told employees on Thursday: ‘The real question is whether we will be able to recognize faces at all, and we do not know. Legally, the answer may be no, if you are familiar with BIPA in Illinois … making people face recognition illegal. Bosworth added: ‘It’s good. We can do this as a society and this product will survive and prosper without it. I do think there are some lost opportunities. ‘
Facebook chief diversity officer Maxine Williams apparently noted during the conversation that the company may need to develop its own principles of face recognition that will be preferred in places where there are no laws governing the technology; such as the BIPA Biometric Information Act (Illinois), which ordered Facebook last year to pay $ 650 million to Illinois citizens for violating BIPA with the company’s function of tagging photos.
According to Williams, he said: ‘Just because you can [build something,] does not mean that you will do so, ”and notes that the company will have to consider the product’s potential for harm and discrimination.
Read more here at BuzzFeed News.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News who discusses issues of freedom of speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at [email protected]