Several banks in the US are deploying camera software that can analyze customer preferences, monitor workers and spot people sleeping near ATMs, Reuters reports.
Bobby Dominguez, chief information security officer at City National, said smartphones that unlock via a face scan have paved the way.
“We’re already leveraging facial recognition on mobile,” he said. “Why not leverage it in the real world?”
City National will begin facial recognition trials early next year to identify customers at teller machines and employees at branches, aiming to replace clunky and less secure authentication measures at its 31 sites, Dominguez said.
He also said the software could, in the future, be used to spot people on government watch lists.
Human rights issues loom large, as critics point to arrests of innocent individuals following faulty facial matches, disproportionate use of the systems to monitor lower-income and non-white communities, and the loss of privacy inherent in ubiquitous surveillance.
Using technology to guess customers’ demographics can be problematic, some ethics experts say, because it reinforces stereotypes. Some computer vision programs also are less accurate on people of color, and critics have warned that such could lead to unjust outcomes.