U.S. Government Facial Recognition Technology: Are Privacy Rights in Danger?
Do you want to live in a society where you are required to have your face scanned wherever you go? If not, you may want to speak up now while you still can. As you will see below, the U.S. government is aggressively expanding the use of facial recognition technology for identification verification purposes. For now, the use of facial recognition technology will be optional. But as we have seen before, once a voluntary option is adopted by enough people our leaders have a way of making it mandatory. Of course it isn’t just our government that is pushing facial recognition technology. It is popping up throughout our society, and given enough time it would literally be everywhere.
Login.gov is billed as “a single sign-on solution for U.S. government websites,” and now users of Login.gov will be given the option to use facial recognition technology to verify their identities.
An online hub for Americans to access benefits and services across the federal government is giving its users a new option to sign on.
The General Services Administration will begin offering facial recognition technology as an option for users of Login.gov, a one-stop for government-provided public services, to verify their identities.
GSA’s Technology Transformation Services announced Wednesday it will allow Login.gov users to verify their identity online through facial technology that meets standards set by the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s 800-63-3 Identity Assurance Level 2 (IAL2) guidelines.
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We are being told that this will help reduce identity theft and fraud, and I don’t know anyone that likes identity theft and fraud.
But do we really want to live in a dystopian world where our faces are constantly being scanned all the time?
I certainly don’t.
We are being told that this new facial recognition system will rely on “best-in-class facial matching algorithms.”
After months of testing and a delay in 2023, users will now be able to verify their identity using a ‘proven facial matching technology’ approved by the General Services Administration, which will follow the National Institute of Standards and Technology and will rely on ‘best-in-class facial matching algorithms’
All of this sounds really creepy to me.
And this is certainly a way for the government to start getting all of our faces into a giant database.
Login.gov already has more than 100 million users, and lots of them will inevitably choose the “convenience” and “security” of facial recognition.
Federal agencies use Login.gov for people to verify their identities when logging in to access government benefits and services. The offering has over 100 million users already across over 50 federal and state agencies, and this news could affect how future users have to verify their identity to access information and benefits.
“Proving your identity is a critical step in receiving many government benefits and services, and we want to ensure we are making that as easy and secure as possible for members of the public, while protecting against identity theft and fraud,” said GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan in a statement.
For now, you will still be able to use other identification verification options.
But once most people start using facial recognition, those other options could easily be taken away.
Sadly, it isn’t just the government that we need to be concerned about.
AI programs such as ChatGPT have turned out to be quite adept at identifying faces.
Using “a crafted prompt designed to bypass the safeguard mechanisms of ChatGPT,” the researchers were able to test the program’s biometric capabilities–which they found to be significant.
“Our study reveals that ChatGPT recognizes facial identities and differentiates between two facial images with considerable accuracy,” says their summary. “Additionally, experimental results demonstrate remarkable performance in gender detection and reasonable accuracy for the age estimation tasks.”
Even more alarming is what a couple of Harvard students have been able to accomplish.
They integrated PimEyes facial recognition software into a pair of Meta’s smart glasses, and they were able to instantly pull up the personal information of strangers by scanning their faces.
Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses offer an iconic wearable packed with some smart features that allow users to engage in a hands-free experience. Two Harvard students have integrated smart glasses with a facial recognition system that helps automatically dox strangers and access their information in public.
According to 404media, the facial recognition system called I-XRAY can be used to retrieve information such as phone numbers, addresses, or even social security numbers of strangers. All the user needs to do is look at the person. While software capabilities have been making the rounds, it is the hardware running the software that has been the talk of the town, which is Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses.
Nguyen and Ardayfio created I-XRAY using Meta’s smart glasses along with PimEyes facial recognition software, which is currently the largest search engine. The entire system of fetching information on the individual is automatic, and the smart glasses start digging the data as soon as the face is in the frame.
If we stay on the current trajectory that we are on, it would likely only be a matter of time before this sort of technology is everywhere.
Can you imagine what criminals could do with this?
A predator would not even need to follow you home. He could just scan your face without you even realizing it, and by scanning your face he could get your address, your phone number, and a whole host of other private details about your life.
A lot of people out there just don’t get it.
In a society without any privacy, the bad guys can always find you.
Of course in a society without any privacy, there would be no hiding from tyranny either.
When facial recognition technology is literally everywhere, there will be nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.
Every time your face is scanned, your location will be known.
Needless to say, most people already carry around phones that constantly monitor where they are anyway.
But as the Big Brother surveillance grid that is being constructed all around us becomes even more pervasive, it won’t be too long before there is literally no opting out.
I have been a very vocal advocate for privacy for over a decade, but during that time our privacy rights have been greatly eroded.
Now is the time to take a stand, because once our privacy rights are completely gone it will be nearly impossible to get them back.
Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
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