Of course it isn’t just our government that is pushing facial recognition technology.  It is popping up throughout our society, and given enough time it would literally be everywhere.

Login.gov is billed as “a single sign-on solution for US government websites”, and now users of Login.gov will be given the option to use facial recognition technology to verify their identities…

An online hub for Americans to access benefits and services across the federal government is giving its users a new option to sign on.

The General Services Administration will begin offering facial recognition technology as an option for users of Login.gov, a one-stop for government-provided public services, to verify their identities.

GSA’s Technology Transformation Services announced Wednesday it will allow Login.gov users to verify their identity online through facial technology that meets standards set by the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s 800-63-3 Identity Assurance Level 2 (IAL2) guidelines.

We are being told that this will help reduce identity theft and fraud, and I don’t know anyone that likes identity theft and fraud.

But do we really want to live in a dystopian world where our faces are constantly being scanned all the time?

I certainly don’t.

We are being told that this new facial recognition system will rely on “best-in-class facial matching algorithms”…

After months of testing and a delay in 2023, users will now be able to verify their identity using a ‘proven facial matching technology’ approved by the General Services Administration, which will follow the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and will rely on ‘best-in-class facial matching algorithms’

All of this sounds really creepy to me. And this is certainly a way for the government to start getting all of our faces into a giant database.

Login.gov already has more than 100 million users, and lots of them will inevitably choose the “convenience” and “security” of facial recognition…

Federal agencies use Login.gov for people to verify their identities when logging in to access government benefits and services. The offering has over 100 million users already across over 50 federal and state agencies, and this news could affect how future users have to verify their identity to access information and benefits.

“Proving your identity is a critical step in receiving many government benefits and services, and we want to ensure we are making that as easy and secure as possible for members of the public, while protecting against identity theft and fraud,” said GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan in a statement.

For now, you will still be able to use other identification verification options.

But once most people start using facial recognition, those other options could easily be taken away.

Sadly, it isn’t just the government that we need to be concerned about.

AI programs such as ChatGPT have turned out to be quite adept at identifying faces…

Using “a crafted prompt designed to bypass the safeguard mechanisms of ChatGPT,” the researchers were able to test the program’s biometric capabilities – which they found to be significant.

“Our study reveals that ChatGPT recognizes facial identities and differentiates between two facial images with considerable accuracy,” says their summary. “Additionally, experimental results demonstrate remarkable performance in gender detection and reasonable accuracy for the age estimation tasks.”

Even more alarming is what a couple of Harvard students have been able to accomplish.

They integrated PimEyes facial recognition software into a pair of Meta’s smart glasses, and they were able to instantly pull up the personal information of strangers by scanning their faces…

Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses offer an iconic wearable packed with some smart features that allow users to engage in a hands-free experience. Two Harvard students have integrated smart glasses with a facial recognition system that helps automatically dox strangers and access their information in public.

According to 404media, the facial recognition system called I-XRAY can be used to retrieve information such as phone numbers, addresses, or even social security numbers of strangers. All the user needs to do is look at the person. While software capabilities have been making the rounds, it is the hardware running the software that has been the talk of the town, which is Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses.

Nguyen and Ardayfio created I-XRAY using Meta’s smart glasses along with PimEyes facial recognition software, which is currently the largest search engine. The entire system of fetching information on the individual is automatic, and the smart glasses start digging the data as soon as the face is in the frame.

If we stay on the current trajectory that we are on, it would likely only be a matter of time before this sort of technology is everywhere.

Can you imagine what criminals could do with this?

A predator would not even need to follow you home.  He could just scan your face without you even realizing it, and by scanning your face he could get your address, your phone number, and a whole host of other private details about your life.

A lot of people out there just don’t get it.

In a society without any privacy, the bad guys can always find you. Of course in a society without any privacy, there would be no hiding from tyranny either.

When facial recognition technology is literally everywhere, there will be nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. Every time your face is scanned, your location will be known.

Needless to say, most people already carry around phones that constantly monitor where they are anyway. But as the Big Brother surveillance grid that is being constructed all around us becomes even more pervasive, it won’t be too long before there is literally no opting out.

I have been a very vocal advocate for privacy for over a decade, but during that time our privacy rights have been greatly eroded.

Now is the time to take a stand, because once our privacy rights are completely gone it will be nearly impossible to get them back.

Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

For the record, this publication adamantly opposes such moves. Many frame it as a privacy issue. We see it as a tool for near-future tyranny. Once installed, it is inevitable that this type of technology will be widely and grossly abused by both public and private entities for the sake of their “greater good.” With that said, here’s Joel R. McConvey from Biometric Update…

Transit officials in Los Angeles have declared a public safety emergency over the stabbing of a 66-year-old woman in the city’s Metro transit system, and are planning to deploy facial recognition tools to help identify repeat offenders and deter violent crime, according to reports from the Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles Daily News.

Beatings, stabbings and other violent incidents have been rising on L.A.’s public buses and trains, including four attacks in April. The perpetrator of the stabbing attack that killed Mirna Soza Arauz had a prior ban from the transit system for violent altercations. But Metro says its officers had no way of knowing that a dangerous individual was riding the train. Had facial recognition systems been in place, they might have made the match.

Calling Soza Arauz’s death “a shot across the bow,” the Metro board has given unanimous support to a motion asking the CEO to report back in two months on the feasibility of facial recognition deployments on buses and trains.

The situation is being framed in the direst of terms by those who initiated the request. “Our agency has grappled with a very real and unacceptable level of violence, illicit drug use sales and overdoses, and a blatant disregard for the law, our code of conduct and, quite frankly, basic human decency,” says board member and Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger. “Until we completely reverse security reality on our system, I’m concerned that we will never come back.”

FRT payments common but security use cases come with privacy concerns

Facial recognition and other biometric systems have been trialed or installed in transit systems around the world, most often for payments. Deployments in Moscow, Mumbai, Shanghai and Indonesia have differed in scale, modality and approach. For security purposes, Bogota deployed facial recognition software from Corsight AI for real-time surveillance of the city’s TransMilenio system, which resulted in six arrests. And Sao Paolo outfitted its 3-Red subway line with face biometrics and object detection systems that trigger alerts for security operators.

One place that transit riders will not be able to use facial recognition to pay for their rides any time soon is New York City. Gothamist reports on a new law that requires the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to “not use, or arrange for the use, of biometric identifying technology, including but not limited to facial recognition technology, to enforce rules relating to the payment of fares.”

Cautious approach to facial recognition depends on perspective

Academia has typically recommended a cautious approach to using facial recognition for law enforcement in public spaces – although that caution takes different forms and focuses. An article in the Cambridge Law Journal from December 2023 advocates for an incremental approach to regulating the technology. Per the abstract, “by analyzing legislative instruments, judicial decisions, deployment practices of UK law enforcement authorities, various procedural and policy documents, as well as available safeguards, the article suggests incremental adjustments to the existing legal framework instead of sweeping regulatory change.”

Other voices in the debate, however, argue that advances in facial recognition technology are outpacing laws and regulations, and that a swift, comprehensive response should be the government’s primary concern. In a new report entitled “Facial Recognition Technology: Current Capabilities, Future Prospects, and Governance,” the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine “recommends consideration of federal legislation and an executive order” on facial recognition tools.

“An outright ban on all FRT under any condition is not practically achievable, may not necessarily be desirable to all, and is in any event an implausible policy, but restrictions or other regulations are appropriate for particular use cases and contexts,” says the report. “In light of the fact that FRT has the potential for mass surveillance of the population, courts and legislatures will need to consider the implications for constitutional protections related to surveillance, such as due process and search and seizure thresholds and free speech and assembly rights.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has launched an investigation into facial recognition and its use by American federal agencies.

Just in the past several years, advancements in things like AI (artificial intelligence), cashless payment systems, augmented reality and more have happened so quickly that one could argue that we are in dystopia right now – though there is still much more to come.

Unless some kind of black swan event puts an immediate stop to it, the dystopian future will rapidly become the dystopian present – and in many ways it already is.

Take palm scanning, for instance. Paying for food and other items with a swipe of the hand rather than with cash or credit used to be a futuristic concept from the Book of Revelation. However, some stores are already using it, including Whole Foods Market and its parent company Amazon at its Amazon Fresh stores.

“The palm-recognition system works by linking a user’s payment information with their unique palm print,” explains The Exposé (United Kingdom). “If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you can also link it with your Prime account – no need to fumble in the Amazon app looking for your in-store code any longer.”

“At Whole Foods, you just hover your palm over the reader once you’re ready to pay and the system will find your Prime account, apply any discounts and charge the credit card you enrolled with.”

(Related: Big Tech is currently working on erasing white people and their history from the internet.)

When reality becomes a video game

What about facial recognition systems? At the recent G20 gathering of dystopian globalist leaders in Brazil, every attendee was forced “to pass a biometric validation process by scanning their faces using Serpro’s stand devices.”

Serpro, by the way, is a Brazilian government-run data processing agency that plans to unleash facial recognition all across the land. In order to buy and sell in the near future, one will probably have to undergo a face scan, as well as pay with the swipe of the hand rather than with cash or credit.

“If they can start getting this technology in place, it will inevitably be adopted by more and more institutions,” The Exposé warns. “And then someday you may wake up and find that you can’t get a job, open a bank account or buy groceries without having your face scanned – What will you do then?”

Apple just released its infamous Apple Vision Pro augmented reality headset to “augment reality” on a continual basis, making day-to-day life more of a video game than actual reality. This will tie in well with facial recognition and palm-scanning payment systems.

“Apple claims that the Vision Pro, which starts at $3,499, is the beginning of something called ‘spatial computing,’ which basically boils down to running apps all around you,” The Exposé explains.

“And the company’s ads for it do not hedge that pressure even a little: they show people wearing the Vision Pro all the time. At work! Doing laundry! Playing with their kids! The ambition is enormous: to layer apps and information over the real world – to augment reality.”

Then there is Elon Musk’s new Neuralink brain implant chip, which will turn humans into transhumanist robot hybrids. For some reason, a lot of conservatives love Musk because he says a lot of conservative-pandering things on X, but the guy is all about destroying humanity and turning everyone into hybrid computers.

Human life is sacred, as is the natural world around us, but Musk and others like him want to destroy it by “augmenting” or “hybridizing” the natural world, humans included, with computers. Just say no, as the late Nancy Reagan once said.

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Sources for this article include:

• Expose-News.com
• NaturalNews.com

Once the technology is implemented, people traveling to the UK, including those from EU countries, will be required to upload a selfie on the Home Office’s website. On arrival at a border checkpoint, their face will be scanned for identity verification. The technology eliminates the need to interact with a border officer but raises new privacy concerns.

Home Secretary Priti Patel said that she has, “been focused on taking back control of our immigration system through my New Plan for Immigration.”

“This includes ensuring we have a border that is fit for the 21st century, which allows travelers to get a visa and pass through the border easily while maintaining national security,” she added.

The UK will test the system next March, starting with visitors from the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman.

The news of the new border control plan comes after it was revealed that the UK agreed to demands from the US for more access to the biometric data of Britons traveling to the US. The US is making similar demands to EU members, under a scheme dubbed the “Enhanced Border Security Partnership.” On its part, the EU is asking members to implement biometric border screening systems.

Image by Tumisu, please consider Thank you! from Pixabay. Article cross-posted from Reclaim The Net.