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IPFS News Link • Technology: Software

Software That Identifies Any Passing Face Is Ready For Market

• popsci.com By Kelsey D. Atherton

Is it worth the convenience for a machine to recognize your face? Submit a selfie, and you don't need to carry a ticket into a concert, promises Moscow's NTechLab, which used face-scanning technology to let people into a electronic music festival this summer. Of course, the selfies, once submitted, stay with NTechLab, which is free to sell its face database and facial recognition tool to anyone, from concerts to police departments to authoritarian governments.

NTechLab's young cofounders seem unphased by the notion that facial recognition software could threaten privacy. The Wall Street Journal reports:

The 26-year-old Mr. Kukharenko and 29-year-old Mr. Kabakov [NTechLab cofounders] largely brushed off any fears that their technology could end up in the wrong hands. Mr. Kabakov said that simply owning a smartphone means you can't opt out of surveillance. "There is no private life," he said. "Your government can control you now…. You take your iPhone or Android phone and it has information about your behavior, your movements, about what you buy, about who you are talking to."


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