Rise of the Machines
‘Machines to scan faces of travellers at UK airports’ read the title of Chris Hope’s article on Stansted and Manchester airports’ facial recognition trials in the Telegraph on Tuesday. Uncertain of whether to relate this to border security or the eagerly awaited Terminator film starring Christian Bale, I read on with renewed vigour.
Thus it emerged that the Government has launched a new biometric trial designed to tighten security and speed up passenger traffic through immigration. The project is part of the UK Border Agency’s long term strategy ‘for ensuring the UK continues to have one of the most secure borders in the world.’ Providing all goes to plan, this can only be a good thing.
Yet the trial has come under intense scrutiny, primarily for using what critics regard as an ‘unproven technology.’ In 2001 Super Bowl officials deployed facial recognition technology to try and match faces of the crowd with those of sought-after suspects. It all resulted in a spectacular failure, with the system identifying more than a dozen potential matches, all of which turned out to be false. Deploying the same technology in airports could be catastrophic, critics say, and will result in security breaches putting the public at risk.
While this appears to be a knockdown argument, perception differs from reality. There are two reasons why the Government’s facial recognition trial is worth undertaking. Firstly, the system involves ‘one-to-one’ rather than ‘one-to-many’ verification. Unlike the Super Bowl scenario, the person’s facial characteristics are matched against their passport photo alone, not a watch-list of wanted criminals. Secondly and on a related point, ‘one-to-one’ facial recognition is in fact a proven technology. Faro airport in Portugal, for example, has been using it successfully for over a year now, enabling holders of British biometric passports to skip the queues and make it though immigration in about 20 seconds.
Surely that is why a trial can only be a good thing. As biometric technologies become a more prominent feature of border control, it will be important to take them through the rigorous testing procedures that ensure success in the long run. I for one am excited by the prospect of a speedy return through border security after a long and tiring journey. Biometric technology is improving all the time, and with this so will security and ease of passage at our borders.
By Sebastian Fox, Programme Executive.
I think it's terrible; more and more information about every person is collected in governmental systems, inaccessible and forever stored in a database where incompetent gov. employees and contractors have shown that they're not wasting a second trying to make it secure, but send vast datas across the country in plaintext on CDs (children's insurance) on laptops or USB drives (hospital records and criminal records)!!! Doctors wandering around with the files on unencrypted usb drives which they take home from work??
They have been scanning passport photos a long time; why would they? I haven't given them permission to follow me around or to store my data! Their passport scans can be used to do facial recognition in the vast system of 'closed' circuit television, aka. surveillance cameras across British cities. Great, so they can even track my movements then! Including when I enter and exit the country.
Why can't people see when the surveillance society has gone too far and the human integrity and right to privacy is getting erased for 'the greater good'?? (which it is not)
Studies (read August's 'New Scientist') have shown that emotion affects people's decision-making skills. In an indoctrinated society like the British one, gov has for many years tried to make people scared, and they have succeeded. If people are scared they are more likely to agree with extensive gov. intelligence gathering systems, like all the cameras, like the biometry etc. The journal had an interesting example of where when faced with the choice of life insurance to cover either death by a terrorist act, or life insurance to cover any possible mean of death, for the same price, people would not infrequently choose the one only to cover death by terrorism act. Of course it doesn't make sense, but it does if feelings are allowed to affect your judgement, which is exactly what every stupid person is doing when they are chanting for harder punishments for criminals (feeling that crime rate is one the rise, which in fact, it is not; since the 90's it's fallen by 40%), and more policing of streets, chanting for more tracking of muslims, even if they are the largest religion in the world and a infinitesimal small part of the muslim body actually is extremist, or like here, chanting for better 'security' at borders.
Finally, a funny thing happened at my college. It's all for security, which shows on their balance sheets and the fact that I'm only allowed into my own department with my key card -- anyway, so are halls where I stayed. They have stoppers so that you can't open the windows, because if you do you might HURT YOURSELF, dear god! (I just want fresh air!) So there was this guy who was a bit -- i dunno -- and anyway, he wanted to kill himself because of a romantic story gone bad with his girlfriend. So he jumps through the window. Through the window. The stops didn't help then did they.
All-in-all, stop the madness!
Posted by: Henrik | Tuesday, 16 September 2008 at 11:08 AM