We’re Too Lazy to Stop Facial Recognition
Why the end of privacy is comfortable
I had an experience the other day that should have been quite normal.
I boarded a Delta flight.
As I boarded the plane, I went through the same robotic motion I’ve performed a hundred times: arm out with passport and ticket.
Only this time, the smartly dressed flight attendant refused to take my ticket. They wouldn’t even look at my passport. Instead, a camera and computer screen loomed over me. I looked, smiled, and a green check mark appeared.
My face was all I needed. It was scary. It was nice.
These days, my face is fairly valuable; so is yours. It opens phones, gives you access to checking accounts, and lets you board planes. Maybe that’s why police departments are willing to pay for it.
A recent New York Times exposé looked at the inner workings of Clearview AI, a shady facial recognition startup that web-scrapes social media for 3 billion photos of us. If you have social media, Clearview AI can recognize your face, even if you’ve deleted it. According to the story, this means that some 600 law enforcement agencies can also recognize your face.
The headline is understandably alarmist: Clearview AI is the company that “Might End…
