Facial recognition may have sounded like science fiction ten years ago, but today, it is being used in everything from security to social networking to pet retrieval. The technology has created benefits but also privacy concerns.

A commonly used facial recognition service is Facebook’s photo-tagging system, which suggests tags for users’ photos based on matches to photos of their friends. Earlier this month, Facebook announced its new DeepFace facial recognition software, which can identify faces with over 97 percent accuracy—nearly as well as a human can.

Another widespread application of facial recognition is device security. Users of most Android phones and certain laptops can unlock their devices simply by holding them up to their faces. Recent versions of Android even include a “liveness” check that requires the user to blink.

Nikhil Manglik (9) owns a phone that has the ability to tag photos with contacts based on their faces as well as a facial recognition login, but he uses neither feature.

“It’s too much hassle, and [the developers] haven’t gotten it down very well,” he said. He would use facial login if it were improved, however.

“It’s simpler, and it feels more secure,” he said.

Despite the potential simplicity and security benefits of facial recognition, critics have voiced privacy concerns about storing their faces in company servers, where they could be accessed by employees or government surveillance.

One of the most controversial applications of facial recognition is the NameTag application for Google Glass, which can match photos of strangers snapped on Glass to social networking profiles, sex offender registries, and other publicly available data.

While its creators say their intention is to make social interactions safer and enable people to connect with each other, critics have condemned NameTag for violating basic privacy rights.

“It’s kind of creepy,” Sandhana Kannan (10) said. “[Using NameTag is] like stalking people—you know who they are, and they don’t know anything about you.”

Assistant Director of Instructional Technology Diane Main found NameTag’s potential “exciting, but a little creepy” and pointed out a potential benefit of a similar mobile facial recognition service: assistance for the visually impaired.

“If facial recognition would enable [a visually impaired] person to function more in their job or their social life […] then that would be a good thing,” she said.

Google has stated that it does not intend to support facial recognition on Glass due to privacy concerns.

Main emphasized the role of users in determining the future of facial recognition.

“The technology itself isn’t bad,” she said, “but it comes down to how it’s going to be used and how trusting our society is.”

The growing integration of facial recognition into everyday life shows increasing public acceptance of advancing technology. In another ten years, even the science fiction of today could then become reality.

This article was originally published in the pages of the Winged Post on April 4, 2014.