Pay with your face Technological breakthrough or privacy nightmare?

If there's one thing Russians can be proud of, it's their subway network. Founded in 1935, it is considered a worldwide example for both its size and its efficiency. As if not to deny his legacy, on October 15 he added a novelty. A payment system that does not involve the use of an application, a transport card or a debit or credit card.  You just have to show your face in one of the more than 240 stations that incorporated the system.

Advantages of paying with your face

To activate the system, passengers must connect their photo with a debit or credit card issued by a bank and the transport card through the use of an application. Once the connection is established, the cameras installed in the turnstiles identify the faces (even with face masks) and open the doors. In theory this should take no more than three seconds which should reduce crowding at peak times.

The critics

However, not everyone is so excited about this achievement of Russian technology. Digital privacy activists in Russia warned that the new system it is not going to be used just to improve passenger entry into the Moscow metro service. ,

Artyom Koslyuk, director of Roskomsvoboda, a Moscow-based digital rights group. he claimed:

It is a good pretext to put cameras on the turnstiles. This will allow them to refine the algorithms used for face recognition.

According to Koslyuk, Moscow ranks third in the world for the highest amount of surveillance on the streets and public transport. Some 200.000 cameras placed around the city and in the subway are used to help police identify criminals and prevent crime. According to complaints Russian police have long used facial recognition to find and arrest protesters who participated in peaceful opposition protests.

Two other countries where facial recognition payment systems are used are China and Belarus, neither of which has a good record in respect of privacy. In the opposite position, the European Parliament voted to pass a non-binding resolution to ban the use of facial recognition technology in public places for law enforcement purposes.

Denials

Moscow officials made efforts to remove concerns about invasion of privacy by insisting that the images and data collected are "securely encrypted.". But, from Roskomsvoboda, they claim to have discovered evidence that the system is porous, vulnerable to intruders who can use the data and images. for criminal purposes.

The opinion of the Electronic Frontier Foundation

I would have liked to include the opinion of Edward Snowden, but it seems that in his new home he does not find privacy problems. What I did find, and I find it very interesting, is the opinion de the Electronic Frontier Foundation on a similar technology pushed in the United States for restaurant payment:

• Many people do not have enough banking services, and others use cash as a way to help them manage their budgets and expenses. Cash is also the most privacy-friendly form of payment.
• Users finance the service provider by forcing them to charge money to the service account from which future payments will be deducted. In practice, this modality is equivalent to an interest-free loan that the consumer grants to the provider.
• This type of technology forces the additional expense of buying and maintaining a smartphone.
• Another point to take into account is the reliability of the identification algorithms. Identification has been shown to be unreliable in dark-skinned people. And, I add this, to what extent the system before a mask that imitates a face?

In any case, I have no objection to its being used as an alternative. As long as the safeguards are taken to guarantee the privacy of the data.