Plus, two hefty lawsuits over child privacy and two big stories about human rights in the digital age
The contentious debate over facial recognition software – and now mask recognition software – rages on as developers race to pioneer the best algorithms, despite substantial criticism from privacy advocates.
With 34 states in the U.S., plus the District of Columbia, enforcing mask mandates, recognition software has begun populating the markets. In a National Geographic article last week, Akash Takyar of LeewayHertz in San Francisco said that his company’s recognition software has been deployed covertly in hotels and restaurants across the U.S. and Europe as a tool employers use to make sure their staff remain mask compliant. An airport in the U.S. is reportedly testing the technology on site as well. The United States does not have a federal law governing data privacy, so the question as to whether recognition software crosses the line into privacy infringement or not remains undecided.
Proponents of mask recognition software claim it is not anti-privacy because it does not identify specific people. Facial recognition software, like the kind that allows iPhones to identify their owners’ faces, relies on a “training set,” an initial face it’s trained to identify. Mask recognition software is intended only to identify if someone is wearing a mask or not. Avast Security Evangelist Luis Corrons thinks the benefits outweigh any potential problems. “When we are in the middle of a pandemic bigger than any of us have ever known,” he said, ..
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