| A. scale B. unique C. cost D. distance E. demonstrate F. intrude G. diagnoses H. alarming I. threaten J. false K. crucial |
The human face is a remarkable piece of work. The astonishing variety of facial features helps people recognize each other and is to the formation of complex societies. So is the face's ability to send emotional signals, whether through an involuntary yawn or a(n) smile. People spend much of their waking lives reading faces. Technology is rapidly catching up. In America facial recognition is used by churches to track worshippers' attendance. In 2017, Welsh police used it to arrest a suspect outside a football game.
Although faces are to individuals, they are also public, so technology does not, at first sight, on something that is private. And yet the ability to record, store and analyze images of faces cheaply, quickly and on a vast promises one day to bring about fundamental changes to notions of privacy, fairness and trust.
Start with privacy. One big difference between faces and other biological data, such as fingerprints, is that they work at a(n) . Anyone with a phone can take a picture for facial-recognition programs to use. Photographs of half of America's adult population are stored in databases that can be used by the FBI to track criminals, but at enormous potential to citizens' privacy.
The face is not just a name-tag. It displays a lot of other information — and machines can read that, too. Again, that promises benefits. Some firms are analyzing faces to provide automated of rare genetic disorders far earlier than would otherwise be possible. But the technology also threatens. Researchers at Stanford University that, when shown pictures of one gay man, and one straight man, the system could identify their sexuality correctly 81% of the time. Humans managed only 61%. In countries where homosexuality is a crime, software which promises to infer sexuality from a face is a(n) prospect.
