A Pew Research study found that the public is likelier to see facial recognition used by police as a positive rather than a negative for society. This essay seeks to appeal to commercial incentives as a valuable aim for achieving greater security regarding the growing risks of facial recognition.

Many young people accept a lack of privacy as the norm. A social media user searches for a product on Amazon and subsequently sees an advertisement on Instagram without questioning this occurrence or feeling any sense of discomfort. Modern society accepts this invasion of our privacy and sees it as a necessary by-product of the convenience of the internet and personal computers.

Horrifyingly, facial recognition technology has advanced significantly in recent years and is, unfortunately, used for the aims of nefarious actors such as law enforcement and advertisers. During class, we read news stories regarding policing and facial recognition, such as the Madison Square Garden scandal, and odds are more will come. Even so, everyone focuses on facial recognition rather than the cameras or how all this surveillance data gets stored. We have come to accept these cameras, focus on facial recognition, and lazily excuse it by claiming they help stop crime, or that property owners have a right to protect their property. However, this invasion extends beyond those aims.

Although the increased use of facial recognition technology raises serious privacy concerns that legal and regulatory frameworks have yet to address comprehensively, the public must also look at rules surrounding cloud storage and advertising.

An individual walks out of their apartment to the grocery store and passes by hundreds of cameras owned by local stores and giant conglomerates. Odds are, all of this is cataloged and stored somewhere. Years ago, these recordings were probably deleted as keeping them was pricy, but what happens when they never get deleted because cloud storage becomes cheaper and cheaper? We have entered an era where individuals sometimes expect privacy but seldom know if they have privacy.

Shopping malls, airports, and other public spaces may have installed cameras or other surveillance equipment and sell or license the footage to advertising companies like Quividi and AdMobilize? that aggregate the camera footage over various time points and physical locations and use facial recognition to track citizens and serve advertisements.

What is worse is that even if the recording owner is not doing it now, if they are using cheap cloud storage, they could later apply software to see something a cataloged passerby did in the past. Think about someone going to an abortion clinic or union organization, even while taking adequate precautions like not bringing their cell phones. A camera still picked them up, and all this data can be stored with cloud service providers like AWS, or Azure.

Moreover, camera quality has gotten insanely better. Look at this interesting Facebook patent, a product that can track users through microscopic lens scratches on their cameras and subsequent photos. Essentially, it is a fingerprint that allows Facebook to see that a photo person B uploaded was sent to them by person A, and they might be friends, family, or related.

The focus should be on something other than facial recognition and why our society has allowed all these cameras, and where this data is going.

Additionally, we cannot count on this storage to be safeguarded. Proponents might argue that state-of-the-art security measures are in place, but look at data leaks like Equifax. Forced deletion and bans on cameras might be necessary. More than fines or regulations on facial recognition is needed. Facebook's $5 billion penalty was deemed significant, but it was just a drop in the bucket compared to its giant market capitalization.

Headlines regarding the police or foreign countries using facial recognition often makes the news, but since state-subsidized capitalism runs America, an appeal to commercial aims could be more effective.

Proponents might say that there are some valuable things to facial recognition, such as how a government can stop crime if they can track everyone or how Walgreens improves GDP and the standard of living by profiting off facial recognition.

However, it could kill creativity, ideas, and the economy. As more and more people lose privacy, even outside their computer devices, they will become increasingly wary of trying new things and generating ideas. Humans tend to conform, yet everyone does private things that they fear might lead to them being ostracized. As privacy disappears from increased surveillance, people will tend to act and think the same (unless the divisive social media feedback loop pits them against each other.)

Citizens should know where the tape of them walking into a coffee shop is stored and be able to have it deleted or opt out of any subsequent advertising. Mass conformity and surveillance will hurt the economy, and appealing to the legislature regarding potential commercial losses could strengthen an attack on these violations. While facial recognition technology has often been in the news because of government and law enforcement intrusions, cloud storage pricing, advertisement aggregators, and the long-term psychological effects of mass surveillance and social conformity also need to be addressed in the conversation.