Source: You Cannot Encrypt Your Face – The Atlantic by Alvaro M. Bedoya
We have grown accustomed to the monitoring of our technology and communications. There is something different, something intractable and ominous, about the tracking of our bodies.
From the Boston Tea Party to the printing of Common Sense, the ability to dissent—and to do it anonymously—was central to the founding of the United States. … Our history is replete with moments when it was a “crime” to do the right thing, and legal to inflict injustice.
The latest crime-fighting tools, however, may eliminate people’s ability to be anonymous. … Face recognition is not just about finding terrorists. It’s about finding citizens. … As law enforcement develops increasingly powerful surveillance tools, we need to ask ourselves: Are we building a world where no dissent is anonymous?
Democracy may be impossible in a world where no dissent is anonymous.