Estate Living Magazine Design for living - Issue 42 June 2019 | Page 62

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• What are the laws regarding the gathering, dissemination and
use of the data? This is different in different countries. A company
under great criticism for their use of data is Face Watch. Face
Watch shares its data with private companies and the police.
There are accusations that the data is also sold for monitoring
a person’s shopping activities. This raises the question of who
owns the data and how it can be used.
What mechanisms are in place to protect people?
• Corporates like Google are refusing to sell their facial recognition
technology until they have the policies in place to ensure the
protection of the public.
• In South Africa, there are interesting public conversations but the
practice of giving specialists anonymity, as in this article in the
Daily Maverick (dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-09-28-joburgs-
new-hi-tech-surveillance-cameras-a-threat-to-minorities-that-
could-see-the-law-targeting-thousands-of-innocents/),raises
deep concerns about accuracy and wrongful arrests.
Bottom line
In a country like ours with a history of pass books and surveillance, as
well as a dangerous prison system, should a system with high levels
of inaccuracy be utilised? And what is the cost to our society?
photographs taken from surveillance cameras, and a list of offenders
who have since been acquitted or wrongly accused, the concern is
that often the police force is dealing with untangling wrongful arrests
started with bad and/or old data, instead of keeping the public safe.
These are questions we must recognise and face up to...
Questions to ask
Before investing in facial recognition, you should consider all the
ramifications. There are so many questions, and every one leads not
to answers but to more questions.
How will data be collected? 
• Will members of your community allow data to be gathered, not
just of their faces, but of their children’s faces?
Who is on the database?
• Some companies share their data with other retailers and the
police force, in order to use facial recognition to track offenders.
Will all of the residents be on the database?
• Will they be linked to an identity, and how much information will
that identity give (e.g. address, activities and other individuals
they are linked to)? Linking a face to data means that a person’s
exact movements and activities are recorded.
• How will children be handled? And visitors? 
Where is the data stored?
• How will the data be stored to ensure that it is safe?
• Where will it be stored?
Chantal Lailvaux is a co-founder of AIHO and Kin, as well
as ambassador for the CityAI South Africa, and co-director
for Pint of Science South Africa. Lailvaux’s passion is to bring
simplicity to the delivery of STEAM-based complexity through
research, projects and public discourse.
Chantal Lailvaux