Has Google finally grown up? The care with which it has handled facial-recognition technology seems to support this thesis. Compare it with Facebook. When Mark Zuckerberg鈥檚 social network unveiled its facial-recognition technology in June, it found itself in the middle of a . But Google has avoided that fate: a few weeks ago, it unveiled a technology to in photos uploaded to Google+. Almost nobody noticed.
The different reactions are easy to explain: Facebook enabled this feature for all users without asking their permission, while Google made its tool optional. Facebook may now be warming up to this more-polite approach, too: its stipulates that all future changes to existing privacy controls would require user consent.
The web seems to be moving away from the 鈥渙pt-out鈥� mentality of the arrogant bully, eg, 鈥淲e know you鈥檒l love this feature, so we鈥檒l enable it by default!鈥� to the 鈥渙pt-in鈥� mentality of the smooth-talking diplomat: 鈥淗ey, check out this new feature but only if you want.鈥� As Facebook鈥檚 embrace of 鈥渇rictionless sharing鈥� shows, it鈥檚 one thing to by altering our privacy settings, and it鈥檚 quite another to convince us that sharing is something we really want to do. The former is an offence; the latter is a cause for celebration.
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And yet this triumph of the 鈥渙pt-in鈥� is not all that it seems. While it鈥檚 certainly less coercive, any opt-in still makes the underlying technology 鈥� automated facial recognition, in this case 鈥� seem normal and acceptable. But no technology companies will acknowledge this. 鈥淭he decision is all in the user鈥檚 hands.鈥� 鈥淚t鈥檚 all about giving users more control.鈥� 鈥淲e are not forcing anyone 鈥� people can stay out.鈥� Such bland rhetoric of 鈥渦ser empowerment鈥� has been the staple of Silicon Valley gospel for decades. It rests on a naive belief that technologies are just tools and their impact is quite narrow and limited to accomplishing (or not) the task at hand. Thus, if users want to use Tool X to accomplish Task Y, the only thing up for debate is the desirability of Task Y. That the wide adoption of Tool X may also trigger an unexpected Effect Z never bothers the instrumentalists or, if it does, they just write it off as something incalculable.
Car problem
Alas, such reasoning overlooks the fact that technologies, in addition to serving their immediate functions, also have an ecological footprint 鈥� in that they can transform environments, ideologies, users, power relations, and even other technologies. While cars may be a perfectly effective way of getting from Point A to Point B, one shouldn鈥檛 focus on this feature alone and disregard what the car culture in general might be doing to the quality and even forms of urban living or pollution rates or mortality statistics. Focusing on the immediate uses of an artefact 鈥� regardless of whether those are 鈥渙pt-in鈥� or 鈥渙pt-out鈥� 鈥� seems like a poor way of navigating the 鈥渃ar problem鈥�.
Similarly, to assume that a given technology isn鈥檛 problematic because its users can turn it off seems misguided. Why disregard the possibility that, once enough people opt in to use it, the collective adoption of this technology might dramatically transform the social environment, making non-use difficult or impossible? Once enough Californians have opted in to use the car, something changed, both at the levels of public infrastructure and norms, that makes much of California completely inhospitable to carless living. The car still gets us from Point A to Point B, but wouldn鈥檛 our quality of life be much higher if we tried to anticipate its side effects by developing a more multifaceted view of the car technology?
Now, to return to the subject of automated facial-recognition technologies, here is what we know. This technology can be easily abused; a search engine that generates people鈥檚 names from their faces would be very popular with dictators, all too keen to crack down on popular protest. We also know that facial-recognition technology has already penetrated many walks of life. It is a popular way to secure our smartphones and laptops. It鈥檚 used in many game consoles to create a more personalised gaming experience. It鈥檚 used to track (and in real-time!) the number of male and female patrons in bars. And the list goes on.
Such seemingly innocuous uses beget a generation of start-ups that are looking for new uses for this technology, not all of them innocuous but many of them foreseen by its critics. By the time the general public wakes up, of course, this technology becomes so deeply embedded in our culture that it is too late to do anything.
In a sense, we are dealing with a process that is more sinister than the popular notion of the 鈥渂utterfly effect鈥� 鈥� the idea that the flap of a butterfly鈥檚 wings in Brazil can set off a tornado in Texas. Call it the 鈥淧alo Alto effect鈥�: A carefree user in Palo Alto, California, who decides to 鈥渙pt in鈥� and use Google鈥檚 facial-recognition technology ends up strengthening a dictator in Damascus. Why 鈥渟inister鈥�? Because the Palo Alto user, unlike the butterfly, can actually think two steps ahead, but prefers not to.
Ethical browsing
What鈥檚 to be done? Well, we can put the ethical burden squarely on internet users and sensitise them to the ultimate (even if indirect) consequences of their choices. There are many precedents for this. Mounting concerns over economic inequality, climate change, and child labour have led to the emergence of the 鈥渆thical consumption鈥� movement, which seeks to get consumers to consider the ethical ramifications of their behaviour in the marketplace.
In a similar vein, why not think about applying similar concepts to our engagement with the internet? What would 鈥渆thical browsing鈥� or 鈥渆thical social networking鈥� entail? Never using sites that exploit facial-recognition technology? Refusing to do business with internet companies that cooperate with the US National Security Agency? These are the choices we鈥檒l have to make if we don鈥檛 want the internet to become an ethics-free zone. After all, unreflective use of technology 鈥� just like unreflective shopping 鈥� does not a good citizen make.
But let鈥檚 not allow internet companies off the hook, either. Of course, Google and Facebook are different from rapacious corporations exploiting poor farmers or underage children. Neither company is building surveillance tools that would be used by dictators. What they do, however, is help create the apposite technical and ideological infrastructure for such tools to emerge in a seemingly natural manner. This doesn鈥檛 provide strong grounds for regulation, but it opens the door for citizen activism, boycotts, and, if all else fails, civil disobedience.
Internet companies know perfectly well that they鈥檝e got responsibilities. Earlier this year, Eric Schmidt, Google鈥檚 executive chairman, and expressed his concern about it. And yet Google has just endorsed this technology, albeit with the 鈥渙pt-in鈥� proviso. This, Google thinks, shields it from any accusations of unethical behaviour; after all, it鈥檚 all up to the user! But would we be persuaded by oil companies claiming that anyone concerned with climate change doesn鈥檛 have to drive a Humvee? Perhaps not. It鈥檚 in pretending that they don鈥檛 know how this sad movie ends that technology companies鈥� chief ethical blunder becomes evident.
