Pew Research released a report in February 2021 in which they canvas the views of various tech experts and futurists about their anticipations of the post-COVID shifts in technology and society for 2025. Facial recognition and other biometrics and AI featured prominently in these accounts – positioning FRT as one of a suite of inferential and surveillance... Continue Reading →
Face Recognition to Verify Vaccine Status?
Facial solutionism has, predictably, reared its head in the vexed discussion of vaccine passports. A government funded program in the UK is developing software that pubs, cafes, and other venues can use to scan patron's faces as a condition of entry to determine whether they have been vaccinated. Such an approach would protect against the... Continue Reading →
Facial recognition: a case of Australian exceptionalism?
Given the steady profusion of biometrics and FRT around the world, why should we pay particular attention to Australia – a large landmass with relatively small population on the periphery of the Southern Hemisphere? In one sense, Australia is an ideal showcase for the everyday implementation of this technology across society. To date, discussions over... Continue Reading →
paper accepted for AOIR 2021
We are very pleased to have a paper accepted for the 2021 AOIR conference in October. The paper arises from our ongoing ethnographic work about FRT and biometrics industry trade shows and is titled: "‘Ethical biometrics’ and the face of the child: the surveillance of children within facial recognition industry discourse". In this paper we... Continue Reading →
Facial recognition and the Chinese other
Western perceptions of digital innovation have long remained in thrall to East-Asia. Just as Japan was seen as the world-leading innovator in micro-electronics and computers during the 1980s, China is now widely considered to be leading the development of artificial intelligence. Western news media, policy and public opinion perpetuate a sense that “China Is Dominating Artificial... Continue Reading →
Automated Vision 