Image source @Visual China Text | Tanker Tanker, Author | Ying Wang, Editor | Egg Manager I was afraid of losing my wallet when I went out ten years ago. I was afraid of losing my mobile phone when I went out five years ago. Now I am afraid of losing face when I go out… At the end of 2020, a video of a man wearing a helmet to see a house in Jinan in order to avoid the camera in the sales office went viral on the Internet. For a time, discussions about the installation of a face recognition system in the sales office were raging. The first bomb on March 15 this year hit face recognition. Wandian Palm, Yoluoke, Yaliang Technology, and Rui have been named by CCTV for these four companies that provide facial recognition equipment. This is also the first in the face recognition industry. Once received the official “heavy hammer”. Less than a month after CCTV’s exposure, the “first case of face recognition” reached its final verdict on April 9. Hangzhou Wildlife Park was sentenced to delete Guo Bing’s facial feature information and fingerprint recognition information. People’s Daily commented on the case’s judgment: “The final judgment is of extraordinary significance.” Figure / People’s website official micro In fact, in addition to being misused, facial recognition information is also stolen. On April 13, the Beijing News launched a special report on “Face Recognition Black Product Investigation”, which exposed the situation of human face information being trafficked on the Internet. In addition to photos and ID card information, there are even dynamic videos. The sellers also promised that the videos they sell can pass the verification of most platforms, and the price of these personal information packages is as low as 100 yuan. Previously, in order to prevent criminals from using photos for face recognition, many platforms have adopted dynamic verification methods, such as requiring users to shake their heads, open their mouths, and blink their eyes while facing the camera. The dynamic face verification on the Internet cannot ensure security. How can it not be shocking? While we lament that high technology has brought great convenience to life, it is time to face up to the problems it brings. Facial recognition went from being “acclaimed by the whole people” to “spitting out by the whole network”, what have you experienced in this? Why do shopping malls, sales offices and even milk tea shops install facial recognition systems? Should face recognition be used? 01 Ubiquitous cameras In March 2015, Jack Ma demonstrated Alipay’s face payment technology for the first time at CeBIT (Hannover Consumer Electronics Show), a world-renowned IT and communications industry event. At that time, everyone was surprised at the rapid development of China’s AI technology and was full of expectations for the application of face recognition. Some netizens even ridiculed: “Ma Yun has to rely on his face to eat.” The face recognition technology adopted by Alipay was developed by the Face++ platform under Megvii Technology, and it had reached a recognition accuracy rate of over 99% at that time. In fact, the information to be extracted for face recognition is very complex, including image collection, preprocessing, feature extraction, etc., and requires a large amount of data sets for training. “The combination of face recognition and big data is a very important technology development direction in the future. It is not only a commercial application, but also a great development in the security industry in the future, and it can even bring great help to the public security organs to detect cases.” Li Zhi, who is engaged in the research of face recognition technology, told “Tanker”. So, in the eyes of industry professionals, why has this technology, which has broad prospects and consumers’ expectations, reached the point where it has been collectively attacked today? Maybe face recognition is still far from our daily life. Not everyone’s face information will be leaked, and ordinary people will not be exposed to these chains of interests. However, there are many scenes in our lives where face recognition cannot be avoided, such as public places such as shopping malls, hotels, and sales offices. Regardless of any technology or product, if it can’t give consumers a good experience, it will go wrong sooner or later. “Wearing a helmet to see a house” may seem absurd, but there are actually deeper reasons behind it-the duel between developers and distributors. The developer installs a face recognition system in the store to distinguish whether the customer entered the store naturally or brought by an intermediary. If the customer walks into the sales office by himself, the developer will not give the intermediary even if the house is sold through an intermediary. Commission. “The real estate developer’s own sales commission is only three to five thousandths, and the third-party intermediary is three to five percent. The developer installs the face recognition system to save money, not to let the first The three-party agent made all the money.” Zhang Yong (pseudonym), a salesperson from a real estate agency in Beijing, revealed to Tanker Tanker. “I went to the sales office once, and then I found an agency. The other party told me that I had gone to see the house by myself, and he would not be able to pick up my business. Facial recognition would record my information. If I can’t find an agency, When I bought the house, the 2% discount was gone, and there was a difference of more than a hundred thousand inside and outside.” A lady who had gone to the sales office to see the house expressed her dissatisfaction online. To put it simply, the developer wants to reduce the cost of sales through technical means, so the face recognition system is installed in the sales office, but this behavior is personal information collected without the knowledge of the consumer. Technology should not become a means of competition between real estate developers and distributors, and consumers should not pay for the game between them. In addition to buying a house, buying a car is not safe anymore. At the March 15th party, CCTV exposed the phenomenon that Zhengtong’s BMW 4S stores used facial recognition systems to collect customer personal information. According to facial recognition system provider Yoluoke, in addition to BMW, there are hundreds of 4S stores under Zhengtong that have adopted their facial recognition system. After the CCTV exposure, Zhengtong Automobile issued an apology statement overnight and said that all equipment had been dismantled. Figure / Zhengtong Automobile’s official website Don’t think that only “high consumption” scenes will be recognized by faces. Do you think it’s safe to go out and buy a cup of milk tea? At the March 15th party, CCTV exposed that many stores had installed the “Wandianzhang” face recognition system. Retailers such as Heytea, Laiyifen and MINISO were also exposed as “Wandianzhang” customers. . After being questioned by netizens, Hey Tea issued a statement on its official Weibo: “Hi Tea stores only purchase and use individual models of Wandian Palm. These models do not have functions such as’face recognition’ and’face collection’. , Only used for general security monitoring and back kitchen monitoring such as stores.” At the same time, Wandianzhang also issued a letter of certification for Hey Tea and announced the equipment models provided for Hey Tea. “There are three hundred yuan Hikvision does not use, use more than 1,000 different brand machines?” “We don’t know even if you did it, what’s the use of an apology?” Regarding the statement of Xicha and Wandianzhang, consumers It seems that they didn’t buy it, and they left a message under the statement to question them. Picture / Weibo It is not difficult to see that once a company is caught in a storm of abuse of face recognition technology, it will inevitably be questioned by consumers and its brand image will also be damaged to a certain extent. The importance of face recognition at the March 15 party just shows that the abuse of this technology must be strictly controlled at the policy level, otherwise it will leave greater risks to social security. 02 I missed a thousand shots and never missed one With the current prevalence of face recognition technology, people’s personal information is repeatedly stolen or misused. We can’t help thinking about a question: Why do companies use this improper form to collect people’s private information? According to “Explore Tanker”, companies have installed many face recognition systems in public places for different reasons such as judging passenger flow and analyzing user preferences. However, this behavior has not been approved by consumers. After being questioned, all formal Businesses who have installed a face recognition system say that they will manage the collected information in a unified manner, and will clean it up regularly, and will never leak it out. However, judging from the case of Guo Bing’s lawsuit against Hangzhou Wildlife Park, the zoo can still submit Guo Bing’s personal information as evidence a few months after the incident. This also has to make people question the so-called claims of these companies and institutions. Can the “regular clean-up” be achieved? Face recognition can be seen everywhere now. To what extent has its algorithm developed? Where is our personal information stored again? Is this data encrypted? Will they be fraudulently used by others? “The information we collect will definitely be encrypted, and face data and text data will also be stored separately, but there is still no unified standard to prevent these data from being copied, and leakage will happen to a certain extent. However, We now have many solutions to solve these problems, such as randomly generating a keyword to associate different facial information, so that the security will be higher.” Li Zhi told “Tanker Tanker”. “Technically speaking, face recognition is about taking a picture, then identifying some key information on the face, abstracting it into data and saving it. There are a large number of technical components about face recognition on the Internet, so the application threshold of this technology is relatively low. But the threshold for research is relatively high. There have actually been a lot of negative news about face recognition, such as “photo unlocking”. So now generally, in places with higher security, face recognition is required to be “live recognition” at the same time. For example, the video makes you nod, wink, or some special equipment uses 3D modeling to make comprehensive judgments.” Fan Jiying, chief software engineer of a Sichuan Science and Technology Company, told “Tanker Tanker.” Photo / CCTV Finance Nowadays, it’s nothing new to be recognized by faces when entering a sales office or 4S shop, but there is actually a situation of “being recognized as soon as you pass by the shop door”. There are even sales staff who hand out flyers on the street to pull passers-by to help. As for the number of visitors, just let passers-by walk around in front of the store. So, what use is this data for companies? What impact will it have on consumers? “It’s actually a BUG to be recognized when you pass by. Because anyone who enters the range of the camera can be recognized theoretically, so the installation of the camera and the orientation of the camera are very particular. Of course, the software algorithm can also be used for shooting. The imported photos are sampled to filter out faces that are too small or too large to avoid misrecognition. The result of face recognition should eventually generate a string of feature codes, through which a person can be identified. If the person’s face information and identity information (such as membership, ID card, etc.) are bound together, then you can locate which person it is, otherwise you can only know the mobile data of a person, but it’s not clear who he is. It doesn’t make much sense.” Fan Jiying said to Tanker. Although the accuracy of recognition technology is getting higher and higher, there is definitely a possibility of error in face recognition. Many large companies do not only use face recognition and fingerprint recognition, but also use the user’s usual software habits, location information, etc. And so on, through big data analysis to compare, in order to improve the accuracy of the recognition results. All in all, for companies, based on business-level needs and trying to gain insight into consumer preferences, the installation of a facial recognition system is to “prefer a thousand wrong shots than to miss one.” 03 Technology is not guilty In fact, any kind of technology can be used to do good or bad things. The technology itself is innocent, and its degree of good and evil depends entirely on how people use it. Since the appearance of face recognition, it has made a lot of contributions to the safety and stability of society. For example, Jacky Cheung caught 5 fugitives in 4 concerts, which is the credit of the face recognition system at the entrance of the concert venue. From April to May 2018, a total of 5 fugitives from Jacky Cheung’s concert were arrested. Netizens even joked that he was an “undercover sent by the Public Security Bureau.” In addition to the security field, face recognition, as a technical means, will inevitably be used for commercial purposes, but companies should be clear that technology is only an auxiliary means of profitability, and the only way to truly make a company grow is to do its own products. . For consumers, the application of new technologies should not be “smashed to death” by the abuse of some businesses. “Face recognition wants to continue to develop, on the one hand, various laws and regulations need to be adopted to ensure the correct application of technology; on the other hand, other technologies are also needed to reduce its error rate. These are all’prevention’. In addition to’prevention’ , There should be some compensation measures, no matter how to prevent it, there will always be fish that slip through the net, then how to deal with the problem after it occurs, how to correct it…… These are not all solved by technology. In short, technology is a tool, the key depends on how Yes.” Fan Jiying said to Tanker. In the era of artificial intelligence, face recognition has become an indispensable technology integrated into our social life. Whether you apply for a card at a bank, pay by swiping your face, or just go home and enter the community, facial recognition systems appear in these scenarios. With the rapid development of science and technology, life is bound to become more and more intelligent. We can neither let life be kidnapped by technology, nor can we obstruct the development of technology due to choking. In the final analysis, the technology itself is innocent, it just depends on how we apply it. And in this era of rampant black technology, how can we better protect our privacy? This is an important proposition given to us by the times. When our security awareness, policies and regulations, business environment and the speed of technological development gradually coordinate, our life will be more comfortable and safer-not afraid of losing your mobile phone when going out, let alone fear “Shame”.
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