As face recognition technology evolves at a dizzying speed, new uses and terminologies seem to develop daily. On this page, we attempt to define and disambiguate some of the most commonly used terms.
For more information on government use of face recognition and how to end it in your community, visit EFF’s About Face resource page.
Face detection: Determines whether an image includes a human face. Some government agencies use face detection to aid in obscuring identifiable faces before releasing video footage in response to requests for public records. As a result, many bans on government use of face recognition technology specifically exclude face detection for this purpose, provided that no information about the faces is collected or stored. Generally, this use does not raise significant privacy concerns.
Face recognition: Any collection and processing of faceprints, including both face matching and face analysis (two terms defined below). Face recognition raises significant digital rights concerns.
Faceprinting: A fundamental step in the process of face recognition, faceprinting is the automated analysis and translation of visible characteristics of a face into a unique mathematical representation of that face. Both collection and storage of this information raise privacy and safety concerns.
Face matching: Any comparison of two or more faceprints. This includes face identification, face verification, face clustering, and face tracking (four terms defined below).
Face analysis, also known as face inference: Any processing of a faceprint, without comparison to another individual’s faceprint, to learn something about the person from whom the faceprint was extracted. Face analysis by itself will not identify or verify a person. Some face analysis purports to draw inferences about a person’s demographics (such as race or gender), emotional or mental state (such as anger), behavioral characteristics, and even criminality.
For more information about the various kinds of face recognition, check out this more detailed post.
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