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  • NEWS FEATURE

Resisting the rise of facial recognition

Growing use of surveillance technology has prompted calls for bans and stricter regulation.
  1. Antoaneta Roussi
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A spherical security camera overlooks a pedestrianised space with people walking past a large globe-shaped sculpture

Cameras watch over Belgrade’s Republic Square. Credit: Vladimir Zivojinovic for Nature

In Belgrade’s Republic Square, dome-shaped cameras hang prominently on wall fixtures, silently scanning people walking across the central plaza. It’s one of 800 locations in the city that Serbia’s government said last year it would monitor using cameras equipped with facial-recognition software, purchased from electronics firm Huawei in Shenzhen, China.

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Nature 587, 350-353 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-03188-2

Additional reporting by Richard Van Noorden.

References

  1. Kak, A. (ed.) Regulating Biometrics: Global Approaches and Urgent Questions (AI Now Institute, 2020).

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  2. Feldstein, S. The Global Expansion of AI Surveillance (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2019).

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  3. Ada Lovelace Institute. Beyond Face Value: Public Attitudes to Facial Recognition Technology (Ada Lovelace Institute, 2019).

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  4. Buolamwini, J. & Gebru, T. Proc. Mach. Learn. Res. 81, 77–91 (2018).

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  5. Learned-Miller, E., Ordóñez, V., Morgenstern, J. & Buolamwini, J. Facial Recognition Technologies in the Wild: A Call for a Federal Office (Algorithmic Justice League, 2020).

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