People generally think about facial recognition technology as something that provides an extra layer of security. But it’s increasingly being deployed by governments around the world to provide an extra layer of authoritarian control over dissent. “While authorities generally pitch facial recognition as a tool to capture terrorists or wanted murderers, the technology has also emerged as a critical instrument in a very particular context: punishing protesters.” Rest of World: The changing face of protest. “Mass protests used to offer a degree of safety in numbers. Facial recognition technology changes the equation.”

+ “A company called Clearview AI has scraped the internet to gather (without consent) 30 billion images to support a tool that lets users identify people by picture alone. Though it’s primarily used by law enforcement, should we have to worry that the eavesdropper at the next restaurant table, or the creep who’s bothering you in the bar, or the protestor outside the abortion clinic can surreptitiously snap a pic of you, upload it, and use it to identify you, where you live and work, your social media accounts, and more?” A discussion with NYT journalist, author of Your Face Belongs to Us, and one of the few people named after a Led Zeppelin song (not kidding), Kashmir Hill: About Face (Recognition).