Joseph Ferenbok, PhD candidate and Professor at UTM, was guest-lecturer for this evening’s FIS 1210 : Information and its Social Contexts class. In a word? WOW. His lecture and presentation was based on his 2005 “Research Day” conference paper, “Facial Recognition and Imposed Biometric Identities”.
For close to an hour, he had us (or at least me) enraptured. At one point I glanced across the class and not only were all eyes on him, but the eyes followed Ferenbok as he walked from side to side at the front of the room. Seeing this reminded me of my Betta fish, who will swim back and forth, back and forth, following me with each turn I take. Without question, tonight’s discourse proved to be the most stimulating and thought-proving experience I have had at FIS thus far.
- Facial Recognition Technology has an unreliable 52% accuracy rate, while the chance of two people having the same Iris Biometric is 1 in 14 billion. Guess which technology the US Government has deployed…
Why just look at the advantages:
- The chosen surveillance and identity system has a 50/50 chance of correctly identifying teh terroristzss!!.
- It streamlines practices of racial profiling, perpetuates stereotypes, and provides ample opportunities for scapegoating.
What ‘new technology’ will they think of next? Phrenology? Perhaps a categorical photography renaissance (hey, it worked for the Nazis).
- Recognition. In order for FRT to have a shot at being effective, the subject/suspect has to smile for the camera more than once. A repeat offender, if you will. Suicide bombers are generally not repeat offenders.
- Biometric technologies are part of the larger anthropometric tradition of measuring the human face to try to establish essential identity, character, and other stable characteristics of the inner self.
- We have a long history of assigning identity through facial appearance and structure, i.e., “she looks nice”, “he looks mental”, etc. I had a clever photoshop idea for this, but the computer I’m on can’t seem to find photoshop. Boo.
Anyway, Ferenbok’s lecture inspired me a great deal. Precisely what I needed. I do hope his paper is published at some point, I’d love to be able to cite it proper.
