Face recognition is coming to schools, stadiums, and airports, but surprisingly not to body cameras—yet. On an earnings call Tuesday, Rick Smith, CEO of Axon, one of the largest body camera manufacturers in the U.S., said the reason was simple: In addition to privacy and policy concerns, face recognition isn’t…
Less than a week after a damaging report exposed substantial flaws in facial recognition technology marketed to law enforcement by Amazon, five Democratic lawmakers are calling for an investigation into the commercial and government use, and potential abuse, of the technology.
Shoppers at the Chinook Centre, a mall in Calgary, Canada, have been unwittingly scanned by face recognition software.
Amazon’s controversial face recognition software, called Rekognition, misidentified more than two dozen members of Congress as people arrested for crimes. The false identifications were made when the ACLU of Northern California tasked Rekognition with matching photos of all 535 members of Congress against 25,000…
According to some under-the-radar news outlets, there’s a lot to look forward to when it comes to Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy S10 smartphone. The rumored device is expected to ship next year with a number of new features that would help it stand out in a world filled with iPhone X offspring and decent, low-cost phones.…
Across the country, law enforcement agencies are teaming up with data firms to bring facial recognition to public spaces, including airports, schools, and even protests. Most of these efforts remain clouded in secrecy, but newly released documents from Oregon officials using Amazon’s facial recognition offer our…
Security researchers have unearthed an elaborate scheme of North Korean front companies secretly suppling advanced biometric recognition and encryption software to countries around the world. In a new report, researchers at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies say North Korea uses a web of freelancing…
In 2012, a ruling by Britain’s High Court found that keeping the mugshots of innocent people in police databases was unlawful. But almost six years later, the country’s Home Office has defended the continued retention of such images, saying, basically, the problem is too expensive to fix.
A federal judge ruled Tuesday that a class action lawsuit against Facebook over the company’s face recognition practices, with potentially millions of plaintiffs, can move forward to trial.
Chinese police say they used facial recognition to identify, then arrest a man attending a crowded concert in Nanchang, China’s third largest city. South China Morning Post reports that security cameras equipped with the software pinpointed the man out of the estimated 50,000 other people also in attendance at the…
iPhone X owners who still use Snapchat are in for a pleasant surprise today. The camera company, famously annihilated by Rihanna after it approved an ad mocking domestic violence victims, is finally releasing its previously announced lenses designed for the iPhone X. The feature was teased nearly seven months ago, so…
Madison Square Garden security has been secretly using facial recognition software to scan spectators’ faces, the New York Times reports. This would make MSG the latest space to be using face-scanning tech on an unknowing public.
Researchers at the Georgetown Center of Privacy and Technology have filed suit against the NYPD for more details on the department’s highly secretive face recognition program.
Editor’s Note: After this post was published, Facebook provided more specific details about how their face recognition system works. The following post has been updated to include the additional information given to Gizmodo, and the headline has been updated to reflect that.
A new review of face recognition software found that, when identifying gender, the software is most accurate for men with light skin and least accurate for women with dark skin. Joy Buolamwini, an MIT Media Lab researcher and computer scientist, tested three commercial gender classifiers offered as part of face…
Chinese police have begun using glasses equipped with facial recognition-enabled cameras to spot fugitives traveling through train stations. Though Chinese police have said the glasses will spot people using fake IDs or traveling to avoid a warrant, many are concerned about China using the tech to target political…
Face recognition has spread from airports to soccer games to elementary schools and now, farms and stables. Global food giant Cargill announced Wednesday that it is partnering with Cainthus, an Irish computer vision company, to pilot face recognition technology on cows starting this year. Privacy advocates may be less…
Ahead of the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korean officials are prepping a fleet of specially equipped tactical drones to deter terrorism. Korean outlets Hankyoreh and Yonhap report the fleet includes drones equipped with cameras, face recognition capabilities, and a “drone-catching drone” that will drop nets…
According to The Japan Times, the organizers of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics plan to use expansive face recognition software at the games, scanning and tracking the faces of hundreds of thousands of athletes, journalists, and officials. Sources close to Olympic officials told the newspaper that the technology won’t be used…
According to a new report by surveillance law researchers, the Department of Homeland Security’s $1 billion “Biometric Exit Program,” which requires travelers submit to face recognition scans, may violate federal law. Starting in June, several airports began mandating face scans at boarding gates for some…
