Facial Recognition: A Benefit or A Threat?

Two or three decades back, nobody thought that technology would become a crucial part of everyone’s lives. Even the idea of a mobile phone was considered silly, but here we are with smartphones in our hands, which are getting better by each passing day. Not only mobile phones but technology itself is getting advanced every day. And with recent discoveries like Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, people are trying to make technology work more like humans. For example, self-driven cars do not require a human driver.

One such technology is facial recognition. We meet hundreds of people every day and we scan their faces in our minds. There are chances for us to forget their names, but their faces always remain in our minds. This is now implemented with technology, in order to identify different individuals. The most common use of facial recognition is in the new-age smartphones that unlock the phone with a single look. 

Not only this, but facial recognition is also used in many places for security purposes. Let’s have a look at few of them.

Facial Recognition Security Uses

Facial recognition is the best way to recognize different individuals as it leaves no room for cheating. Not only secure, but it is also cost-effective and fast as compared to other means of recognition. Many big organizations use facial recognition security to maintain their employees’ records. Some of the most common uses of Facial Recognition Security are:

  • Students in schools and colleges have always tricked attendance systems. So now, facial recognition attendance systems are installed there. They cannot mark their attendance without being physically present in front of the system.
  • Facial recognition security is used in banks to avoid any frauds as it can easily detect any new person who might not be behaving normally. It is also a good way of securing online payments, as a transaction only happens when your face matches and nobody can steal that.
  • Surveillance cameras installed in public areas records any crime in its range. With facial recognition, the police are able to detect the criminal’s face and find him faster. Even if the criminal runs away, the police can find him/her whenever they will cross any other public camera.
  • There is some crucial information in every organization, to which very selected people have access. With facial recognition security, it is easy to protect that information and make sure only the allowed people get to access the information.

Facial Recognition Security Disadvantages

While facial recognition security stands above all other security modes, there are certain disadvantages to it. Here are some of them:

  • With facial recognition security, cameras are able to enter into people’s personal lives. They are able to track who meets whom and who is doing what. This means no person can live without the fear of being tracked.
  • No matter how secure the servers of facial recognition systems are, they are always vulnerable to hackers. If leaked in wrong hands, these data can harm people in many ways. Also, this data might be used by different organizations for their own purposes, without the consent of the people.
  • A slight angle change in the camera might lead to false recognition by it and it can lead to many problems.

Solution

The only solution to the privacy issue of the facial recognition system is a facial recognition blocker. There are certain companies that use artificial intelligence to make sure these systems work according to the planned way without getting into people’s personal lives.

This facial recognition blocker encrypts the original picture of the person. This encryption turns the original picture into a representation of the image. This makes sure even if the data gets into wrong hands, they will not be able to get people’s original faces and hence their security will be maintained. Also, these systems are one-way, so there is no way that hackers can decrypt encrypted pictures.

So with facial recognition blocker, facial recognition security becomes better than any other mode of security. It does have one or two drawbacks but with the benefits it provides, these flaws can be taken care of. Also, with the technology running so fast, there might soon be a solution to these drawbacks and face recognition will be made fool-proof.