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Every CREEP in the world, your BOSS, and your MOM will know EVERYTHING you've done as TWO BILLION cameras become facial recognition devices

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Privacy is dead in the name of corporate cash.

Say goodbye to your anonymity, facial recognition software is about to explode into the mainstream, allowing you to be recognized anywhere and everywhere you go. The implications of this are staggering.

We ask you, humbly: don't scroll away.

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Highlights

By Marshall Connolly (CALIFORNIA NETWORK)
Catholic Online (https://www.catholic.org)
6/3/2016 (7 years ago)

Published in Technology

Keywords: privacy, facial recognition, software

LOS ANGELES, CA (California Network) - For Russians, the nightmare has already begun. A newly released app allows any person on the street to snap your picture and learn your name, with 70 percent reliability. Authorities can use to to identify dissidents. Creeps can use it to ask you on a date or to cyber-stalk you. Retailers can use it to target advertisements based on what you looked at in a store.

In Russia, the app is called "FindFace" and it links to the nation's most popular social networking site, Vkontakte. According to developers, 500,000 users have already used the app over 3 million times.


There's nothing like it available in the United States, yet. Facebook does have excellent facial recognition software, and it's a natural evolution for the company to develop their own app which they can sell to retailers and even law enforcement.

There are already over 250 million surveillance cameras in use around the world, and the number is increasing dramatically. There are approximately two billion smartphone users, and every one of them will soon be able to find out exactly who you are, where you live and what you do -- or have done in the past.

Within the next few years at most, our anonymity will be gone. Will we notice? Already we are viewed by dozens of security cameras each day. If law enforcement had a compelling need to trace our movements, they could do so using the ubiquitous network of security cameras that are constantly filming us day and night. Soon, anyone with a smartphone will be able to sneak a snapshot of us and learn who we are.

How will this change our behavior? For one, we will begin to develop the assumption that we are under constant surveillance. We already are under some form of constant surveillance, but this is even worse because instead of merely our faces being spotted, our identity will be known too.

Those identities will be linked to a social profile and those who see us will learn a lot about us without having to ask a single question. And for those without social networks, a database can be built anyway based on our public behavior.

Will this software make us safer? We might be able to use it to weed out the occasional scary-bad date, or someone who has a criminal record, or a questionable YouTube video, but it can just as easily be used to gather names and other information for people who are targets of creeps, weirdos, criminals, and even nosy employers.

It may also become annoying as you catch people taking surreptitious snapshots of you, or nosing into  business in which they don't belong. You may not appreciate the hyper-targeted ads you are served.

Unfortunately, it is probably too late to put the genie back into the bottle. All that's left is to enjoy the last few months or years of anonymity we have in the west before Facebook, or another enterprising firm releases the app to end all privacy. And like fools, we will all use it with reckless abandon.

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Deacon Keith Fournier Hi readers, it seems you use Catholic Online a lot; that's great! It's a little awkward to ask, but we need your help. If you have already donated, we sincerely thank you. We're not salespeople, but we depend on donations averaging $14.76 and fewer than 1% of readers give. If you donate just $5.00, the price of your coffee, Catholic Online School could keep thriving. Thank you. Help Now >

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