CNN news 2011-06-20
Stories “Cross Country”， Union supporters back at the state capital in Madison, Wisconsin. They're protesting a state Supreme Court decision to uphold anti-union law. The controversial measure curbs collective bargaining rights of teachers and other state employees.
In Arizona a camp fire is reportedly to blame for this wildfire. The largest in state's history. U.S. Forest Service officials tell affiliate KNXV that two people are being investigated in connection with this blaze. The fire has scorched more than 733 square miles in eastern Arizona and western New Mexico.
Finally in suburban Atlanta, a telephone utility truck crashes into a pool filled with 12 swimmers. Luckily, no one was hurt. Police say the driver lost control of the truck after slipping into a diabetic coma.
All right. So this is a pretty scary thought. A stranger taking a picture of your child uploading the photo and then using facial recognition technology to learn personal details about his or her life.
Well, and you wouldn't even ever know about it. Here's how it works. If you Facebook, you tag photos. It makes it easier to find pictures of you and all your friends, but it also takes a lot of time so that's why facial technology was introduced.
But as you can imagine, not everyone is very happy about this. So now advocacy groups have filed a complaint with the FTC over the use of this technology, actually asking Facebook to stop.
Congressman Ed Markey of Massachusetts is also concerned.
Congressman, let's talk about why you're backing this complaint.
Well, I think that your privacy is the most important thing that you have. And for Facebook just to assume that everyone would want to have this facial recognition technology built into their use of Facebook to allow for basically a resetting of all of the privacy protections that individuals had established for themselves, so that Facebook would decide that this facial recognition technology would be part of your use of Facebook, is just way over the line.
They should have to get permission. That is, Facebook should have to get permission from each user before such a sensitive change in the way in which people can be recognized just becomes part of the Internet without your control.
And I want to point out. We did reach out to Facebook to get its response to this FTC complaint via e-mail and didn't receive a response.
Now, you Facebook, Congressman. Are you worried about your personal information and how far this could go?
Now, my Facebook is in my office and we put up statements, videos and we abide by all privacy and security laws. But I'm not concerned there. I'm more concerned about an individual out there, or a child, that just doesn't understand the implications of a picture or any other information being made more public and available to everyone. And I think that we need to actually implement new regulations, new laws in order to give that power over to consumers, rather than giving it to Facebook or other information companies.
And let's just be really direct. We sort of mentioned it at the beginning here. I mean, the situation could be, let's say, your 12-year-old has a Facebook page and a pedophile spots her coming out of school, takes a picture of her, uploads it, does the facial recognition technology, and, poof! All of her information comes up. This pedophile could find out where she lives, what she likes to eat, who her friends are. Correct?
That is correct. Obviously, children especially using this technology, they are 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and that's why I've introduced legislation to create a child online privacy Bill of Rights so that the information that is being gathered that the parent has knowledge of it, that noticed that it might be used for other purposes, and the parent has a right to say, no, they don't want that to happen.
And to demand the company erase any information about that child that the parent does not want to have online. We need something like that in an era where predators are out there roaming throughout cyberspace, looking for opportunities to take advantage of children.
We will definitely follow up on the Bill of Rights.
But, real quickly, just to play devil's advocate here, this story just came across yesterday. Actually, my copy editor, Tracy, brought it to my attention. It was out of San Diego. The family ，and we have a picture of this Marine major actually put their father's picture on Facebook and they believe that facial recognition actually helped him find his half-brother that the officer had never met.And now, they are communicating.
So, there's a positive story about what facial recognition technology can do.
And the key there, as you just said, is that the family decided to put the photo up. It was the family's decision.It's not Facebook's decision that a child's picture is up or someone who wants their privacy protected, for whatever reason, puts their picture up. It's that the family decided to use it as a tool.And that should be the balance. It should not be facial recognition. It should be Facebook's recognition that family should be making these decisions and not a corporation.
Congressman Ed Markey, thanks so much for your time.