Face recognition could be detrimental to undercover cops
31 August, 2011
category: Biometrics
The increasing use of face recognition on social media and photo sharing sites, while both novel and irksome to the general public, could have devastating effects on people whose livelihood depends on anonymity, such as undercover police officers, according to a Popular Science article.
Due to these worries, the Australian Federal Police has started researching social medias impact on its covert operations as their early surveys pointed to 90% of female employees and 81% of male employees use social media such as Facebook and Twitter.
Further, and more worrisome to the agency, was that every single respondent 26-years-old or younger had shared photos of himself online with 85% saying others had uploaded pictured of them online as well.
The main concern from the early findings of the survey is that the next generation of undercover agents and officers will find infiltration of terrorist or criminal groups increasingly difficult as their own history and affiliations could be very easily detected online.
Read the full story here.