Surveillance technology as we said before threatens human freedom and progress. Everything is watched and monitored. You are under control, “to watch is to control” resulting not in world peace but the Panopticon. AC/DC sings, “I feel safe in a cage in New York City.” [1] We are all in a global prison system. The Chinese know this position very well. This represents the old paradigm of bad results, despite good intention, issuing from impartial means or assumedly “neutral technology”; instead of a more interconnected society of trust and value, from personal experience, speedy and efficient communications technology has produced an entire population under watch viewed from a central location. It is an anti-social environment. It cuts people off from their connection to their own individuality, each other and prevents bonding. Did we choose this arrangement or was it foisted upon us? More than likely we chose our own imprisonment. Freedom requires responsibility and self-control. This is the divine image. We can individually and collectively break free from our chains if we wanted to simply by hitting the off button. The West gives power and preference to the individual rather than the group. In the East it is the reverse. The dialectical struggle is being played out on the streets of Hong Kong where citizens press for the Sate to recognize civil rights and basic human dignity.
In addition, facial recognition technology wants to be able to predict the criminal archetype from composite photos and images. This technology is being used to predict character, reliability, habits, I.Q. as well as identify terrorists, gays, straights and pedophiles. Technological progress on this front is causing a regression in scientific knowledge. This technology is leading us back to the days of Phrenology, Physiognomy, and Eugenics, pseudosciences which were once used to support Race Theory in the 19th and first half of the 20th century. The 21st century appears to be going retro in an attempt to bolster the acceptance of surveillance technology and public safety. This technology cannot exist without support from Junk Science. This represents the idea that we can judge a person’s character, virtue or lack of it on stereotypes and criminal characteristics or facial profile according to anatomical features, such protruding jaw line, big nose, big lips, sloping forehead, color of the skin, size of the cranium and the like. Certainly, technology will attack what it perceives to be negative types with the same vigor that embolden the Nazi’s hatred for the Jews. It puts institutional racism on an empirical or scientific bases, making it legitimate in the popular mind and academic venues. Facial recognition will change the way people apply for jobs, become a church member, or join the college faculty; instead of a personal interview employers will study facial patterns that will judge an applicant’s honesty, thrift, to see if they are a good fit for the job. This should concern us deeply, as we move forward with these new technologies, let’s not resort to the mistakes of the past. How may they compromise civil rights, such as privacy and personal liberties? Everyone will be assigned a mug shot with physical measurements in the background, and of course, a profile this is already the case for those imprisoned. Physiognomy or the art of “face-reading” an occult science really, is making a comeback through facial recognition technology.
[1] AC/DC “Safe in New York City” in Stiff Upper Lip (Australian Music Corp. Pty, LTD), 2000.