Face recognition, although seemingly similar to image recognition, is a much more complicated undertaking.
The goal of face recognition is to identify the individual as opposed to the class it belongs to (human), and this identification task needs to be performed on a nonstatic (i.e., moving person) 3D environment. Face recognition has been an active research field in AI for many decades with limited success until recently.
Thanks to the new generation of algorithms (i.e., deep learning) coupled with large data sets and computational power, face recognition technology is starting to make a significant impact on real-world applications.
From security to marketing, face recognition and the variety of applications/use cases of this technology are increasing at an astounding pace.
Some of the premier examples of face recognition (both in advancements in technology and in the creative use of the technology perspectives) come from China. Today in China, face recognition is a very hot topic both from business development and from application development perspectives. Face recognition has become a fruitful ecosystem with hundreds of start-ups in China. In personal and/or business settings, people in China are widely using and relying on devices whose security is based on automatic recognition of their faces.
As perhaps the largest scale practical application case of deep learning and face recognition in the world today, the Chinese government recently started a project known as "Sharp Eyes" that aims at establishing a nationwide surveillance system based on face recognition. The project plans to integrate security cameras already installed in public places with private cameras on buildings and to utilize AI and deep learning to analyze the videos from those cameras. With millions of cameras and billions of lines of code, China is building a high-tech authoritarian future. With this system, cameras in some cities can scan train and bus stations as well as airports to identify and catch China's most wanted suspected criminals. Billboard-size displays can show the faces of jaywalkers and list the names and pictures of people who do not pay their debts. Facial recognition scanners guard the entrances to housing complexes.
An interesting example of this surveillance system is the "shame game" (Mozur, 2018). An intersection south of Changhong Bridge in the city of Xiangyang previously was a nightmare. Cars drove fast, and jaywalkers darted into the street. Then, in the summer of 2017, the police put up cameras linked to facial recognition technology and a big outdoor screen. Photos of lawbreakers were displayed alongside their names and government identification numbers. People were initially excited to see their faces on the screen until propaganda outlets told them that this was a form of punishment. Using this, citizens not only became a subject of this shame game but also were assigned negative citizenship points. Conversely, on the positive side, if people are caught on camera showing good behavior, like picking up a piece of trash from the road and putting it into a trash can or helping an elderly person cross an intersection, they get positive citizenship points that can be used for a variety of small awards. China already has an estimated 200 million surveillance cameras-four times as many as the United States. The system is mainly intended to be used for tracking suspects, spotting suspicious behavior, and predicting crimes. For instance, to find a criminal, the image of a suspect can be uploaded to the system, matching it against millions of faces recognized from videos of millions of active security cameras across the country. This can find individuals with a high degree of similarity. The system also is merged with a huge database of information on medical records, travel bookings, online purchases, and even social media activities of every citizen and can monitor practically everyone in the country (with 1.4 billion people), tracking where they are and what they are doing each moment (Denyer, 2018). Going beyond narrowly defined security purposes, the government expects Sharp Eyes to ultimately assign every individual in the country a "social credit score" that specifies to what extent she or he is trustworthy.

Questions for Case 6.6
1. What are the technical challenges in face recognition?
2. Beyond security and surveillance purposes, where else do you think face recognition can be used?
3. What are the foreseeable social and cultural problems with developing and using face recognition technology?