One big difference between faces and other biometric data, such as fingerprints, is that they work at a distance. 人脸和指纹等生物数据的一大不同是，它们能够隔空使用。

Anyone with a phone can take a picture for facial-recognition programs to use. 凡是有手机的人都能拍一张照片，供脸部识别程序使用。

FindFace, an app in Russia, compares snaps of strangers with pictures on VKontakte, a social network, and can identify people with a 70% accuracy rate. FindFace，这款俄罗斯的APP，能把陌生人的快照与社交网络VKontakte上的照片进行比较，并且还能识别身份，准确率为70%。

Facebook's bank of facial images cannot be scraped by others,  脸书的人脸影像库不能被其他人涂抹，

but the Silicon Valley giant could obtain pictures of visitors to a car showroom, say, and later use facial recognition to serve them ads for cars. 但是这家硅谷巨头却可以获得前来某次车展的游客的照片，然后再用脸部识别技术给他们推送车辆广告。

Even if private firms are unable to join the dots between images and identity, the state often can. 即便是私人公司无法将影像和身份联系起来，国家经常能做到这一点。

China's government keeps a record of its citizens' faces; photographs of half of America's adult population are stored in databases that can be used by the FBI. 中国政府保有公民的脸部记录；半数美国成人人口的照片存储在可以被FBI使用的数据库中。

Law-enforcement agencies now have a powerful weapon in their ability to track criminals, but at enormous potential cost to citizens' privacy. 如今，在追踪罪犯能力方面，执法机构拥有一件强有力的武器，但是，其潜在的巨大代价是公民的隐私。

The face is not just a name-tag. 人脸不光是一种名称标签。

It displays a lot of other information—and machines can read that, too. 它还告诉人们许多其他方面的信息——而且机器也能读懂这些信息。

Again, that promises benefits. 这再次预示着各种好处。

Some firms are analysing faces to provide automated diagnoses of rare genetic conditions, such as Hajdu-Cheney syndrome, far earlier than would otherwise be possible. 有的公司正在分析人脸，以提供对对某些罕见的基因病症，如Hajdu-Cheney综合症的自动诊断，这比否则才有可能的情况大大地提前了。

Systems that measure emotion may give autistic people a grasp of social signals they find elusive. 某些衡量情感的系统或许能让自闭症患者理解他们发现是难以捉摸的社交信号。