Young and old sharply disagree on facial-recognition tech, study finds

The kids, it would seem, are alright. The olds? Well, maybe not so much. 

As we slowly devolve into a capitalism-fueled surveillance state, having strong opinions about the place of facial-recognition tech in society simply means you’re paying attention. And, according to a new survey from the Pew Research Center, the end result of that scrutiny is quite different depending on your age. 

Specifically, in a report released Thursday, Pew finds that the public’s opinion on both law enforcement’s and private corporation’s use of facial-recognition tech varies wildly with the age of the individual being asked. 

Contrary to the oft-repeated stereotype that younger generations don’t care about privacy, older adults tend to express more permissive views of facial-recognition technology than younger adults. And while it matters whether you’re asking about law enforcement’s use of the tech versus, say, a private company’s, the age discrepancy remains.  

“A mere 5% of Americans have a great deal of trust that technology companies will use facial recognition responsibly”

“Fewer than half (42%) of 18- to-29- year-olds think it is acceptable for law enforcement agencies to use facial recognition to assess security threats in public spaces,” reads the study. “But that share rises to 55% among those ages 30 to 49, to 65% among those ages 50 to 64, and to 76% among those 65 and older.”

Importantly, it’s not like people are unaware of the multitude of risks — including misidentification, possible racial bias, and privacy concerns — that come with facial-recognition tech. Pew’s survey of 4,272 U.S. adults, designed as nationally representative sample, found that 86 percent of those surveyed “have heard at least something” about the technology. 

Perhaps that general awareness explains the one big point of agreement across generations. Regardless of age, only a minority of survey respondents trust tech companies to use facial-recognition tech responsibly. 

“[Around] one-third of U.S. adults trust technology companies to use facial recognition technology responsibly, and just 18% trust advertisers with these technologies,” notes the report. “Indeed, a mere 5% of Americans have a great deal of trust that technology companies will use facial recognition responsibly, and just 2% have high levels of trust in its use by advertisers.”

Then again, that might be simply more of an indictment of tech companies’ reputations than an outright critique of facial-recognition technology. 

The Pew study contains additional and perhaps unsurprising revelations about Americans’ views of surveillance tech being pushed by corporate behemoths like Amazon. Notably, a respondent’s race plays a role in where they land on the controversial issue. 

“[A] larger share of whites (64%) finds the use of facial recognition in public spaces by law enforcement to be acceptable relative to the shares of blacks (47%) or Hispanics (55%) who say the same,” notes the report. 

This finding gains addition import when one considers the fact that facial-recognition tech is notorious awful at identifying people of color. A 2016 report from Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy & Technology notes that “several leading [facial-recognition] algorithms performed worse on African Americans, women, and young adults than on Caucasians, men, and older people, respectively.”

These biases inherent in the tech have real-world consequences. If a facial-recognition system can misidentify members of Congress as arrestees, what chance do you stand at coming out of this without a scratch? 

The Pew study suggests that many of those most at risk of falling victim to facial-recognition tech’s biases are also opposed to the technology’s use in the wild. At least someone’s paying attention.