Information Security and Privacy in Facial Detection

This report discusses the information security and privacy aspects of the Automated Facial Recognition Authentication (AFRA) system. It covers the benefits and issues of AFRA, implications for privacy, ethical concerns, and implications of deployment in various aspects.

Running head: INFORMATION SECURITY AND PRIVACY IN FACIAL DETECTION
INFORMATION SECURITY AND PRIVACY IN FACIAL DETECTION
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INFORMATION SECURITY AND PRIVACY IN FACIAL DETECTION
Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................2
Possible benefits and problems of use of AFRA systems..........................................2
Implications for the privacy of individual from AFRA.............................................4
Ethical and privacy implications of AFRA................................................................5
Implications of deployment of AFRA in various aspects..........................................7
Conclusion......................................................................................................................8
References......................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
This report intends to discuss the information security and the privacy aspects of the
Automated Facial Recognition Authentication. The probable benefits and the issues of the
use of AFRA systems has been briefly discussed in this report. The implications for the
privacy of the individuals from the use of AFRA in the police services has been briefly
discussed in this report. The discussion of the ethical and the privacy implications of the use
of AFRA has been provided briefly in this report. The major implications of the
implementation of this technology in the police services has been briefly discussed in this
report. Lastly this report concludes with an appropriate conclusion for the report.
Possible benefits and problems of use of AFRA systems
The automated facial recognition authentication for the renewal of the driver license
could be observed as the most appropriate use of the system (Parmar & Mehta, 2014). The
facial recognition could be considered as the non-intrusive biometric technology that denotes
that the facial recognition systems could easily scan the faces of the citizen deprived of any
participation from the citizens. In the aspect of law enforcement, the leadership is required to
evaluate the technology when the opportunities arise in making the officers significantly
efficient, with better information and significantly safer (Chen, 2015). The use of the
technology in the present world has significantly changed the manner by which the peoples
think of the conventional business models. All through the history, the law enforcement has
easily leveraged the technologies and in the present technological world, the leveraging of the
biometric technology is being done for creating significant efficiencies. The major intention
of the facial recognition technology is in the crime prevention. There are several kinds of
crimes that could be easily reduced with the proper use of the facial recognition technology.
The facial recognition could be easily used as the real time application for identifying the

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wanted persons and the known suspects ("Automated facial recognition can benefit society –
if we support its development properly - IFSEC Global | Security and Fire News and
Resources", 2019).
The instant identifications of the individuals have significant benefit of making the
various transportation modes faster, locating the missing adults or children and assisting
instantly for apprehending the individuals for any serious crimes. In the aspect of the driver’s
license renewal, the facial recognition could help in detecting the fraudulent individuals who
possess more than one drivers licence under various names ("Evaluating the use of automated
facial recognition technology in major policing operations", 2019).
Even though there are several benefits of the facial recognition system, there are some
challenges that are required to be considered:
Automatic locating the face: The detecting or locating any face in any image or video
is considered as the initial step within any face recognition system. For example, within any
video surveillance system that has been implemented in any crowded place, it is significant
difficult task to detect any face as there always might be some motion. Moreover, the
background of any image or video makes it significantly difficult to detect the faces.
Illumination: The illumination denotes to the light variations. The changes in the
illumination could vary the complete magnitude of the intensity of the light that has been
reflected back from any object and the pattern of the shadows and the shading that is visible
in any image. The varying of illumination could result in the larger differences in the images
than the varying either viewpoint or the identity of any face. Any similar individual who has
been imaged with the similar camera and then viewed with approximately the similar facial
expression as well as the pose might appear significantly different with the changes in
lighting conditions ("Why regulating facial recognition technology is so problematic - and

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necessary", 2019). The issue of the face recognition over changes in the illumination has been
vastly recognised to be intensively difficult for the algorithms and the humans. In the aspect
of the renewal of the drivers license, there could be individual who would have manipulated
the picture taken with the help of illumination and if the user is already a license holder, it
would not be detected and the person would be categorised as new user.
Implications for the privacy of individual from AFRA
There are some privacy implications for the individuals who apply or even renew the
drivers license and the facial detection could violate the privacy of the individual
significantly. The main question that is raised with the facial recognition is that are the tools
of facial recognition significantly safe to use or does it violates the privacy of the individuals?
When the facial recognition was launched by the Apple company in 2017 (Hanson, 2019).
The technology of Apple allows the unlocking of the devices using the faces or even the
smiles on the faces ("Facial recognition: is the technology taking away your identity?", 2019).
From then, it has been discovered that the facial recognition is used for gaining access to data
of the suspect phone by the FBI. Unlike any passcode, any active consent is not needed for
accessing the information that has been protected by the facial recognition. The police is not
solely the department who are utilising the technology.
The social networking company, Facebook utilises this technology for reducing the
number of the fraudulent accounts. The section of the threat to privacy of the facial
recognition is how swiftly this technology is developing. It represents the classic situation of
the function creep where the implementation of software has been done and then utilised
prior the comprehension of the complete risks has been done (Horikawa, Horikawa &
Horikawa, 2019). It is important to understand that the facial recognition is developing
significantly swiftly. The technology is still imperfect and the proper awareness of the flaws
is required to be done while making any decision. The use of the facial recognition in the

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drivers license could be argumentative for allowing the facial recognition is that the privacy
aspect could not be expected in the public spaces (Klare et al., 2015). The database of the
facial recognition is significantly valuable for the threat actors than any database of the
photographs. For the efficient working, the facial recognition systems scans the extraction of
the mathematical measurements of person in the consideration. The technology is presently
using the depth in the measurements for the geographic mapping of the faces of individuals.
The facial recognition matches the measurements that could be then compared with the
earlier stored data for analysis. The drawback of this system is that alike any other biometric
systems, this technology could be the target for the hackers (Bowyer & Burge, 2016). This
information is significantly valuable as it provides the details regarding the communities
under the surveillance, or it could be utilised as the key for accessing any other systems. The
biometric data that is stored in the licensing database of the authorities, could easily be stolen
or even modified. Unlike the resetting of any password, short of expensive and the unwanted
surgery, the individual cannot change the faces for manipulating the accurate detection. In
several cases, it has been observed that the facial recognition database significantly exposed
the information on several users. The privacy of the individuals could be violated as the
stolen data could be used for various malicious intentions and it could harm the individuals
(Amos, Ludwiczuk & Satyanarayanan, 2016).
Ethical and privacy implications of AFRA
The technology of the facial recognition is among the potential larger set of the tools
linked with deployment of the new digital tools in the policing contexts. The technology is
being implemented in several departments in the present times, and the police department of
several nations are presently recommending the implementation of this technology. The live
facial recognition allows the police with conducting the identity checks assisted by any
automated recognition system in the real time and in the public areas (Min, Kose & Dugelay,

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2014). The facial features are easily scanned as the people passes by the cameras with the
help of optimised software. The developments in the last decade have displayed how the
digital technologies could be easily used for impacting the relationships of the trust in the
commercial, social and the political aspects. It could be predicted that the digital technologies
would have the similar impact on the trust in the policing. Some of the ethical concerns
related to the use of the facial recognition are linked to the arising in the respect of all kinds
of the police surveillance that are partially addressed by Article 8 of European Convention on
the Human rights. It requires significant interference with the privacy rights to be in the
accordance with the law and required in the democratic society in the furtherance of the
legitimate intentions. Significant concerns could be raised by the both scientific and the civic
groups related to the probable intrinsic biases in the facial technology that might mean it is
significantly less effective at the identification of the faces of both the genders (Sharif et al.,
2016). This particular bias may be in turn permeate the policing operations where the
utilisation of the technology is done. How and whether bias would develop depends on nature
of policing operations where the facial recognition is utilised, the manner how the police
personnel makes the interaction with this technology when it has been utilised for assisting
with the identification, and the method by which the police responds in the field situations
(Chen, Huang & Lv, 2017).
The facial recognition provides the police authorities the accurate technologies for
detecting and detaining the criminals or the suspects that were earlier not caught due to the
unavailability of main evidence (Galbally, Marcel & Fierrez, 2014). While this new
generation of the facial recognition technologies are significantly secure than the precedents,
it comprises of the security and the privacy implications that are required to be considered
before the complete deployment of this technology. The privacy issues are majorly associated
with the use of the facial recognition technology. The privacy issues are presently among the

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most discussed topics of the face recognition authentication. Some of the privacy questions
raised are where is the data of the faces stored? Who else could access the data? What else
would it be utilised for?
Implications of deployment of AFRA in various aspects
The utilisation of the facial recognition has grown to be increasingly debated topic in
the recent times, and it has been increasingly as well as misleadingly criticized by several
unethical tool that is used for spying on common public (Unar, Seng & Abbasi, 2014). The
main reason for the criticism is moreover due to the lack of significant information as well as
the regulation surrounding around this technology. If this technology is used responsibly and
proportionately, it could be used for the greater good of the common individuals. The police
systems could benefit significantly from the crime investigations. This is the aspect where the
facial recognition could offer additional intelligence. These particular systems could
memorise faces of the persons of significant interest, the networks of the gang members, any
wanted criminals and the suspected of the involvement in the serious violent crimes
(Grynszpan et al., 2014). This technology does not take the decision away from human police
officers. Moreover, it do not introduce any improved transparency and the context to the
process of decision making of whether any stop and search intervention has been justified.
Similar to this, advanced technology could recognise and the match any individual viewed on
any CCTV camera at any crime scene to any individual who is a prime suspect to the police
(Grm et al., 2017). The use of the facial recognition for enhancing the security and the
privacy of the digital identity could not be justified as it would lead to the risk of using this
information for any malicious activities by the criminals when the data has been breached and
it could easily be modified (Rautaray & Agrawal, 2015). The breach of the facial data of the
individual would lead to the increase in the security risks for the common people. If the
technology has been deployed in the police department for identification of the criminals or

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any suspect, it improve the accuracy of apprehending the criminals and the security could be
improved (de Freitas Pereira et al., 2014).
Conclusion
Therefore, it could be concluded that the AFRA could be provide several benefits for
the common people it is used accurately and efficiently. But alike any other technology, this
technology also has security implications that are required to be analysed and measured
properly prior deploying this technology in the society. The automated facial recognition
authentication for the renewal of the driver license could be observed as the most appropriate
use of the system. The facial recognition could be considered as the non-intrusive biometric
technology that denotes that the facial recognition systems could easily scan the faces of the
citizen deprived of any participation from the citizens. In the aspect of law enforcement, the
leadership is required to evaluate the technology when the opportunities arise in making the
officers significantly efficient, with better information and significantly safer. There are some
privacy implications for the individuals who apply or even renew the driver’s license and the
facial detection could violate the privacy of the individual significantly. The technology of
the facial recognition is among the potential larger set of the tools linked with deployment of
the new digital tools in the policing contexts.

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INFORMATION SECURITY AND PRIVACY IN FACIAL DETECTION
References
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Automated facial recognition can benefit society – if we support its development properly -
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Bowyer, K. W., & Burge, M. J. (Eds.). (2016). Handbook of iris recognition (pp. 2008-2010).
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de Freitas Pereira, T., Komulainen, J., Anjos, A., De Martino, J. M., Hadid, A., Pietikäinen,
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INFORMATION SECURITY AND PRIVACY IN FACIAL DETECTION
Galbally, J., Marcel, S., & Fierrez, J. (2014). Biometric antispoofing methods: A survey in
face recognition. IEEE Access, 2, 1530-1552.
Grm, K., Štruc, V., Artiges, A., Caron, M., & Ekenel, H. K. (2017). Strengths and
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