Apple’s embrace of facial recognition technology in new iPhone unsettles privacy activists
Shanghai and other Chinese cities have recently started deploying facial recognition to catch those who flout the rules of the road, including jaywalkers
Apple will let you unlock the iPhone X with your face – a move likely to bring facial recognition to the masses, along with concerns over how the technology may be used for nefarious purposes.
Apple’s newest device, set to go on sale November 3, is designed to be unlocked with a facial scan with a number of privacy safeguards – as the data will only be stored on the phone and not in any databases.
Unlocking one’s phone with a face scan may offer added convenience and security for iPhone users, according to Apple, which claims its “neural engine” for FaceID cannot be tricked by a photo or hacker.
While other devices have offered facial recognition, Apple is the first to pack the technology allowing for a three-dimensional scan into a hand-held phone.
There are real reasons to worry that facial recognition will work its way into our culture and become a surveillance technology that is abused
But despite Apple’s safeguards, privacy activists fear the widespread use of facial recognition would “normalise” the technology and open the door to broader use by law enforcement, marketers or others of a largely unregulated tool.