Constitutional Law, International, Society

Turley Speaks At International Conference on Facial Recognition Technology and Privacy Rights

England flagI will be speaking today at the CogX Conference today in England organized by the government’s Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation (CDEI). Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, I will be speaking virtually on facial recognition technology and privacy rights.  That is a loss for me given the fact that London is one of my favorite places on Earth. (Postings will be delayed today due to the speech).

I have a law review article coming out in Boston University Law Review entitled Anonymity, Obscurity, and Technology: Reconsidering Privacy in the Age of Biometrics that explores the privacy implications of this new technology.  As discussed in that study,

“From 1984 to Fahrenheit 451 to The Minority Report to Total Recall, dystopian futures all have a common feature: continual, omnipresent surveillance of every citizen. The fear of living in a fishbowl society is a shared phobia of all free people. It is also the growing reality of those living without freedom in nations like China. The technology that was merely a fiction when Orwell penned 1984 now exists to make his dystopian vision a reality. That technology – and that future – has arrived with recent breakthroughs in facial recognition technology (FRT) and biometric technology.”

My speech explores how to reconsider privacy protections in light of this challenge.

11 thoughts on “Turley Speaks At International Conference on Facial Recognition Technology and Privacy Rights”

  1. It would be great to see an Open Source presentation on this important topic.

    Riots will certainly lead to more calls, like from me!, for drones to be among the crowds recording the people, their faces, their actions.

    It’s known (and I believe it, so it must be true!) that certainty of punishment is a bigger deterrent than bigger punishment, for many ranges of uncertainty and size of punishment.

    I also think camera drones should be armed with paintball guns that can fire at those protesters who are throwing objects, and thus becoming non-peaceful rioters.

    The almost total failure of arresting the guilty will lead to increasing calls for “more effective” policing. If you want to keep more privacy, you need to favor
    More Arrests of Rioters.
    Now.

  2. Maybe you can instill some morals, values, and ethics into the “I’m all right Jack What’s yours is mine and what’s mine’s me own.” It did remind me me mum was smart enough to marry a Yank.

    1. Although I’m glad to see that privacy and other concerns of using the facial recognition technology will likely be looked at, for IBM to completely abandon the research seems short sighted. For example, aren’t there potential military or anti-terrorism uses for this sort of technology? Or is it okay to only sell it to China and similar regimes?

      1. “…for IBM to completely abandon the research seems short sighted. For example, aren’t there potential military or anti-terrorism uses for this sort of technology?”

        On the face of it, I’d agree. I just happened on the story…and posted the link. There may be more…

    2. I think this is short-sighted. By abandoning this area of technology, IBM, Google, and others are only ensuring that it becomes buried deeper into the Classified DoD budget. The public will know less and less about the advances that have been made and new capabilities that the government will have as a result.

  5. Nobody invited Turley for the Whitehouse conference on “totoally dismantling Antifa”?

    In other news, the dog occupying Whitehouse barked this today about a 73 year old man shoved by police the other day leading to internal injuries:

    “Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur. 75 year old Martin Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment. @OANN I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?”

    But always remember, Antifa is the crisis of the hour.

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