The Ethics of Facial Recognition Technology

Those who use facial recognition technology potentially wield immense power. That power is the subject of intense debate—a debate that has legal implications for privacy and civil liberties, political consequences for democracy, and a range of underlying ethical issues. This chapter is a comprehensive presentation of the leading ethical issues in the debates about facial recognition technology. After defining basic terms (facial detection, facial characterization, facial verification, and facial identification), the following issues are discussed: standards, measures, and disproportionately distributed harms; erosions of trust; ethical harms associated with perfect facial surveillance; alienation, dehumanization, and loss of control; and the slippery slope debate.