Reflections: Ethical and Social Implications of Facial Recognition
The report by Wall (2019) discusses the potential ethical implications associated with rising use of facial recognition technologies. The article is framed by introducing a scenario where the use of facial recognition technology may identify a known terrorist, enabling law enforcement to act to prevent a potentially devastating attack but juxtaposed with the potential scenario that the person was misidentified, and potentially ‘neutralised’ by officials despite being entirely innocent.
The use of such technology is indeed an ethical dilemma, on one hand it may be argued that this may act as a crime deterrent, or enable recognition and detention of criminals, thereby preventing future criminal acts and meaning that potential future victims never become so, however, studies demonstrate significant disparity in accurate classification across demographic groups, with dark skinned females experiencing the highest error rate in all classifiers tested (Buolamwini and Gebro, 2018)
Additionally, we can consider that such facial recognition technologies may be used in situations where those being recorded are unaware of this fact, and there is no form of informed consent. We must also question whose hands the data falls into and how this data is used, processed and stored (BBC, 2019). Although the EU AI Act has since come into force (European Union, 2024), and introduces regulations for high-risk AI applications, it is unclear if these would sufficiently address the issues concerning bias and informed consent that are raised in the original article.
In conclusion, facial recognition may indeed offer potential societal benefits in terms of safety and reduction of criminal activity, however poor development, use and transparency risk exacerbating inequalities and undermining public trust.
References
Buolamwini, J. and Gebru, T. (2018) ‘Gender Shades: Intersectional Accuracy Disparities in Commercial Gender Classification’, Proceedings of Machine Learning Research, 81. pp. 77–91. Available at: https://proceedings.mlr.press/v81/buolamwini18a/buolamwini18a.pdf (Accessed: 24 June 2026).
BBC News (2019) Meadowhall shoppers scanned in facial recognition trial. 16 August. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-49369772 (Accessed: 24 June 2026).
European Union (2024) Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 June 2024 laying down harmonised rules on artificial intelligence and amending Regulations (EC) No 300/2008, (EU) No 167/2013, (EU) No 168/2013, (EU) 2018/858, (EU) 2018/1139 and (EU) 2019/2144 and Directives 2014/90/EU, (EU) 2016/797 and (EU) 2020/1828 (Artificial Intelligence Act). (2024) Official Journal of the European Union, L, 2024/1689, 12 July. Available at: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1689/oj/eng (Accessed: 24 June 2026).
Wall, M (2019) Facial recognition: Are you worried about your face being stored?. 2 July. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-48842750 (Accessed: 24 June 2026).