美国国家公共电台 NPR Apple Gets Mixed Reactions To New iPhone's Facial Recognition Technology

 

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

When Apple announced the new iPhone can use facial recognition technology to unlock the device, the response may not have been what Apple had hoped for. The feature immediately raised privacy and security concerns. To hear more about that, we're joined now by Clare Garvie. She's an associate at the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law Center and co-author of "The Perpetual Line Up: Unregulated Police Face Recognition In America." She's with us now in our studios in Washington, D.C. Clare Garvie, thanks so much for joining us.

CLARE GARVIE: Thank you for having me on.

MARTIN: So lay out the privacy and security concerns for us. It sounds - I mean, the technology, first, if you think about it, sounds really cool. So what's the concern?

GARVIE: That's right. The technology is both convenient and it's really cool. And, frankly¹, I don't see too many privacy and security concerns with the way Apple has chosen to deploy² face recognition. What I'm far more concerned about is as face recognition becomes normalized, as it becomes something that we use on an hour to hour basis to send an animated³ emoji, to check the weather, to send a text, what's going to happen is we get very comfortable with it. And we forget that it's used by any number of actors in ways we may not know about that is both less accurate and more privacy concerning than the way that Apple has chosen to use it.

MARTIN: Well, give us the worst-case scenario⁴. Give us some scenarios⁵ that would cause concern.

GARVIE: So right now happening in Russia, face recognition has been used to scan anti-government or anti-corruption protests, identify and then publicly name the people at those anti-government protests. What this means is these people will be subject to intimidation⁶, if not arrest, for their political beliefs. Now, before someone says, well, wait, that's Russia. Why should we in the U.S. care about that?

The fact remains⁷ in the U.S., it's very much a rules-free zone when it comes to face recognition. Law enforcement across the country use this technology in various ways without any laws governing its use. Evidence suggests that it was used on protesters after the death of Freddie Gray in police custody⁸. It looks like face recognition was used on social media posts that protesters were posting from demonstration⁹ sites.

So the law enforcement agents on the ground could, in almost real time, get the identities, the names of the people at those protests. We're a country where we do not necessarily need to show our papers every time we walk down the street. If law enforcement demands our identity, we don't necessarily need to give it. And yet, our faces - now, something we have to present in public - have now done that work for us.

MARTIN: Sounds to me that your concern isn't so much this particular technology but that - what? - that it opens the door to a broader use? Is that really Apple's fault or responsibility?

GARVIE: I don't believe it's Apple's fault. And I think Apple has thought very, very carefully about a number of the security concerns. They have chosen to store the face template, if you will, locally on the phone, which means that it's a lot more secure against being hacked¹⁰ and being stolen. The real concern is that, as face recognition becomes normalized, we may stop worrying about the very real concerns that we should be worrying about as we increasingly are subjected to face recognition that we can't opt¹¹ out of.

MARTIN: That's Clare Garvie. She is an associate at the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown University's Law Center. She was kind enough to join us at our studios in Washington, D.C. Clare Garvie, thanks so much for speaking with us.

GARVIE: Thanks for having me on.

1 frankly   

adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说

参考例句：

• To speak frankly, I don't like the idea at all.老实说，我一点也不赞成这个主意。
• Frankly speaking, I'm not opposed to reform.坦率地说，我不反对改革。

2 deploy   

v.（军）散开成战斗队形，布置，展开

参考例句：

• The infantry began to deploy at dawn.步兵黎明时开始进入战斗位置。
• The president said he had no intention of deploying ground troops.总统称并不打算部署地面部队。

3 animated   

adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的

参考例句：

• His observations gave rise to an animated and lively discussion.他的言论引起了一场气氛热烈而活跃的讨论。
• We had an animated discussion over current events last evening.昨天晚上我们热烈地讨论时事。

4 scenario   

n.剧本，脚本；概要

参考例句：

• But the birth scenario is not completely accurate.然而分娩脚本并非完全准确的。
• This is a totally different scenario.这是完全不同的剧本。

5 scenarios   

n.[意]情节；剧本；事态；脚本

参考例句：

• Further, graphite cores may be safer than non-graphite cores under some accident scenarios. 再者，根据一些事故解说，石墨堆芯可比非石墨堆芯更安全一些。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法
• Again, scenarios should make it clear which modes are acceptable to users in various contexts. 同样，我们可以运用场景剧本来搞清楚在不同情境下哪些模式可被用户接受。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓

6 intimidation   

n.恐吓，威胁

参考例句：

• The Opposition alleged voter intimidation by the army.反对党声称投票者受到军方的恐吓。
• The gang silenced witnesses by intimidation.恶帮用恐吓的手段使得证人不敢说话。

7 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

8 custody   

n.监护，照看，羁押，拘留

参考例句：

• He spent a week in custody on remand awaiting sentence.等候判决期间他被还押候审一个星期。
• He was taken into custody immediately after the robbery.抢劫案发生后，他立即被押了起来。

9 demonstration   

n.表明，示范，论证，示威

参考例句：

• His new book is a demonstration of his patriotism.他写的新书是他的爱国精神的证明。
• He gave a demonstration of the new technique then and there.他当场表演了这种新的操作方法。

10 hacked   

生气

参考例句：

• I hacked the dead branches off. 我把枯树枝砍掉了。
• I'm really hacked off. 我真是很恼火。

11 opt   

vi.选择，决定做某事

参考例句：

• They opt for more holiday instead of more pay.他们选择了延长假期而不是增加工资。
• Will individual schools be given the right to opt out of the local school authority?各个学校可能有权选择退出地方教育局吗？