Mark Sardella, Staff Writer
Featured image courtesy of Tatiana Prisiajny
At some point during the day, you are being recorded. If you’re like me, this doesn’t really matter. The only time I was worried about cameras was when I worked retail.
I would occasionally remember my boss sitting in her office possibly bored and watching us work, so I would straighten my posture and pretend to work harder. Sometimes I would just move to a part of the store where there were no cameras and hide. That was then.
But this is now, and video surveillance is changing. Recent improvements have made it possible for surveillance cameras to be equipped with facial recognition technology. In case you’re wondering how you’re currently being recorded, many surveillance cameras can record in colour and in high definition. More expensive cameras can even record audio.
The new facial recognition cameras take advantage of the existing high definition recording technology and were originally introduced to the retail market as a theft prevention tool.
As you can imagine, it would be helpful for stores who catch shoplifters or suspected shoplifters to tag their faces on cameras and then have the cameras remember their faces. Then, the cameras can alert the associates or managers when offenders re-enter.
Most of us aren’t shoplifters, so you’re probably wondering why this matters, especially since right now the technology is relatively innocent. After all, the camera won’t know your name but it can collect data about your physical features and number of visits, so when I walk in a store the camera might record the following: male, five-foot 11 inches, 20 to 25 years old, white, third visit. It doesn’t seem so bad.
In fact, my first reaction to the technology’s practical application was amusement. I imagined that if these were in our lecture halls, all the ghost students who only show up for exams would quickly be exposed.
It would be funny to see “first visit” at the final exam when the professor checks attendance via facial recognition. More seriously, the technology could help York keep track of on-campus offenders too.
At the same time, imagining facial recognition being used off-campus is a little scary. Back to the retail environment, I can’t be the only person who would feel uncomfortable having a store and its associates know how many times I enter a year, possibly combined with how much I spend on average per visit.
It reminded me of the famous scene from Pretty Woman where the snobby associates refuse to help Julia Roberts’ character because she doesn’t look rich enough. I imagined the newer version of that scene might include me, six months from now, pleading for help from disappointed associates who have labeled me as a “browser-non-buyer” using facial recognition software.
I would be begging them to ignore the 23 times I entered and just browsed. “I graduated, I have a job now,” I would be telling them. “I promise I’m worth your time!” I imagine them eagerly refreshing their iPads, unwilling to look up, waiting for a “big spender has entered the building” notification to pop up.
While this seems a little ridiculous, I do wonder if facial recognition might make the world a little colder for those of us who are on a student budget and a little friendlier for those of us living large.
It is disheartening to think this technology might change our social experiences in public, even if it could mean improved safety and reduced theft.
Regardless of how you feel about facial recognition software, just know that you’re not just being watched, you’re being remembered.
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