New Research Uses Selfies of Social Media Users Without Asking Them

Facial recognition technology is important from security pint of view, and the fact of the matter is that there are a lot of ways in which this kind of technology has the potential to impact our lives. With all of that having been said, the current situation that we are in mandates that people cover their faces up and a big part of the reason why that is the case has to do with the fact that masks might be the only think that could prevent you from catching the virus that is wreaking havoc on the world these days.

Because of the fact that people are wearing masks, it has become more important for facial recognition technology to at least try to adapt. Masks are often not recognized by facial recognition which means that people that unlock their phones using facial recognition are going to be forced to look into using alternate means until and unless an alternative is found or at the very least the tech is improved to the point where people can use facial recognition even while they are wearing masks all in all.

However, the manner in which this research is conducted needs to be ethical. It doesn’t matter how important the tech is, if the research behind it infringes on people’s basic rights then it is better off now being done. According to Cnet, researchers that were focusing on this area decided to use selfies people had taken with their masks in order to do their study, and this might have been okay if they had asked permission which they decidedly did not do.

The selfies were simply harvested off of Instagram which is a place where people often upload things that they only want to share with a select group of people. Hence, the fact that researchers used these photos without permission is a grave misstep, one that could make it so that people that are angered by this behavior might just end up calling for it being cancelled. It is important to avoid missteps like these lest one end up losing the favor of the public which is important for anything.



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