We’re kind of creepy, but not that creepy—the gist of Google guru Eric Schmidt’s public scorn-pouring on technology that’d allow a company to recognize and identify your face, or my face, or anyone’s face.
How? By storing pictures of said faces in a massive photographically encyclopedic database.
That Google would create such a database was “unlikely,” said Schmidt, adding that for anyone to create such a repository was “crossing the creepy line.” Not that it’ll stop someone else from crossing it—Schmidt believes it’s just a matter of time.
(More on TIME.com: CNN Strikes a Chord with Google Over Facial Recognition Article)
Schmidt was speaking at Google’s Big Tent conference on Internet privacy in London this week. He called the technology’s accuracy “surprising,” and added its potential for actualization was “very concerning.”
I’ll say. I lived in the UK for nearly two years, and experienced the CCTV (closed-circuit television) phenomenon firsthand, where virtually every urban inch of the country falls under the cyclopean glare of surveillance cameras (whose effectiveness at preventing criminal activity remains unclear).
What’s next? Buying Guy Fawkes Anti-Facial Recognition masks en masse?
(via The Telegraph)