Section: New Results

Analyse des impacts de la reconnaissance faciale - Quelques éléments de méthode (in French)

Participants : Claude Castelluccia, Daniel Le Métayer.

Significant technical progress has been made in recent years in the field of image processing, in particular in facial recognition. The deployments and experiments of this type of systems are more and more numerous. However, opinions differ on their use, especially in public space. Noting the lack of consensus on a technology that can have a significant impact on society, many organizations have alerted public opinion and asked for a public debate on the subject. We believe that such a debate is indeed necessary. However, for it to be truly productive, it is necessary to be able to confront the arguments in a rigorous manner while avoiding, as far as possible, the preconceptions, and by distinguishing established facts from assumptions or opinions. The purpose of this document [14] is precisely to help put the terms of the debate on solid foundations. It is therefore not a question here of taking a position on facial recognition in general nor of providing an exhaustive review of its applications but of proposing elements of method, illustrated by a few examples. We first present a quick overview of the applications of facial recognition before detailing the reasons that make it a particularly sensitive subject, emphasizing in particular the risks linked to a possible generalization of its use. We then present an incremental, comparative and rigorous approach to analyze the impacts of a facial recognition system.