Tech Expert Explains Why Facebook Is Not Completely Getting Rid Of Facial Recognition
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- Earlier this month, Facebook said they would shut down their facial recognition technology, deleting the faceprints of more than 1 billion people. However, tech expert Carla Franklin says they are still using it in some ways.
"They're essentially using this as an opportunity to improve fraud detection and increase security in some of its applications," she said. "They've spent way to much money and way too much time to just get rid of the program, which is not what they're doing."
Franklin says she believes they are now turning the facial recognition system into a tool that they could sell in the open market. That could come with both positive and negative impacts, including security concerns.
"What if this is sold to your local bank or to your local city government, to the federal government, to law enforcement? Now there are some good uses from a law enforcement or government stand point and using this technology to keep citizens safe," Franklin said. "But there are also some concerning use cases where this could be used to really over reach."
She went on to say that she does believe there should be some legislation on this because of how powerful a tool it could be.
One positive she mentioned was that the airline industry could use it to identify passengers or identify people that are known threats.
"So there is a multitude of things that this technology could be used for. Both good and potentially not so good," she said.
