Identity Crisis: Face Recognition Technology and Freedom of the Will

In this paper I present the position that the use of face recognition technology (FRT) in law enforcement and in business is restrictive of individual autonomy. I reason that FRT severely undermines autonomous self-determination by hobbling the idea of freedom of the will. I distinguish this position from two other common arguments against surveillance technologies: the privacy argument (that FRT is an invasion of privacy) and the objective freedom argument (that FRT is restrictive of one’s freedom to act). To make this case, I suggest that autonomy itself is predicated on the possibility of acting ethically, of freely willing moral laws. I then claim that autonomous self-determination is established as self-determination via social interactions with others. If we conceptualize self-determination as a relation of establishing a claim to individual autonomy in a community of others, we can see how planned uses of FRT subvert possibilities for the establishment of socially recognized agency. FRT not only confuses the process of asking ethical questions but it also imposes the immanent likelihood that all actions are taken not by self-directed, free agents, but by passive subjects in the interest of abiding by the institutionally enforced law. We don’t regard ourselves as ‘Big Brother’. We’re more like a friendly uncle or aunt watching over you. As thousands of football fans streamed into the first Superbowl of the 21st century, each unwittingly ran through a gauntlet of computer hurdles equipped to identify them by their faces. Cameras lodged near turnstiles snapped a shot of each person, matched the shot against a database of millions, and sifted out spectators according to their criminal histories. The general public was alerted to the use of this technology a day after the Superbowl, and officials promptly explained that the technology was used ‘to ensnare terrorists and other criminals’. Many were surprised to learn later that the Superbowl was not the first use of such innovative surveillance technologies. The first broad implementation of distance-based biometric technology began in the UK approximately two years before. The London borough of Newham has had a network of 140 street cameras and 11 mobile camera units since 1998. Since then, casinos have implemented similar technologies to catch cheaters. In the wake of 11 September 2001, discussion over the potential problems with and promise of implementation of such technology has Correspondence Address: Benjamin Hale, Department of Philosophy, University of Colorado, Boulder, Campus Box 232, Boulder, CO 80309-0232, USA. Tel.: þ1 (303) 492-6132; Fax: þ1(303) 422-8386; Email: [email protected] 1366-879X Print/1469-6703 Online/05/020141–18 2005 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/13668790500237047 finally taken to public forums. In this context, however, and in the opinion of this author, the discussion has been sorely lacking. Our faces are the most consistently public aspects of our personalities and our lives: we carry them wherever we go, they alert people to our feelings and our thoughts, and we visually identify others almost exclusively by appealing to facial features. Just now, at the beginning of the 21st century, computer technology has made it possible to identify a person by the unique configuration of her face. This technology can quickly scan a crowd of people and within seconds determine names, family backgrounds, birth records, and addresses of randomly selected faces in the crowd. It enables law enforcement agencies, private security outfits, financial institutions, and small businesses to gather information about any person simply by snapping a quick shot of her face. More than this, it enables interested parties to track activities and behaviors, to gather enough information on one person to determine where she has been and what places she has visited. As it grows in prevalence, its presence alters the way in which we think about who we are and what options we have available to us. In this paper I present the position that the use of face recognition technology (FRT) in law enforcement and in business is restrictive of individual autonomy because it usurps the power of individuals to act morally. I argue that the threat of perfectly enforced external repercussions has a deleterious effect on a citizen’s capacity to make decisions for moral reasons, and that this, not reasons of privacy or objective freedom, presents a strong reason to object to the use of such technology. To make this case, I first present two commonly held positions that, I argue, clarify some of the problems with FRT but do not make a compelling case against the technology. I dub these the ‘privacy argument’ and the ‘objective freedom argument’, respectively. The task of the first two sections of this paper, then, is briefly to elaborate these two popular arguments for the purpose of providing a platform from which to begin discussion of what I will be calling the ‘subjective freedom argument’. In this third argument I reason that FRT severely undermines autonomous self-determination by hobbling the idea of freedom of the will. I defer to Kant to explain the concept of autonomy, reasoning that autonomy itself is predicated on the possibility of acting ethically, of freely willing moral laws. I then borrow from Hegel’s position on recognition to reason that autonomous selfdetermination is established as self-determination via social interactions with others, and not by the private deliberations of a single subject alone. If we conceptualize self-determination as a relation of establishing a claim to individual autonomy in a community of others, we can see how planned uses of FRT subvert possibilities for the establishment of socially recognized agency. FRT imposes the immanent likelihood that all actions are taken not by self-directed, free agents, but by passive subjects in the interest of abiding by the institutionally enforced law. Clarifications of Identity We will be speaking a lot about identity in this paper, so it may help to make a few preliminary terminological clarifications. This paper distinguishes between institutional identity, picture identity, and practical identity. Institutional identity is intended to isolate that institutionally established identity associated with meticulous file keeping. Institutional identity therefore refers to the facts of one’s public 142 B. Hale