Will The Rise of Facial Recognition Technology in Surveillance Signal the End of Privacy?

Facial-recognition technology (FRT) is mainly deployed in the cybersecurity and surveillance sectors. It has long been in use at airport borders and on smartphones, and as a tool to help police identify criminals. But it is now creeping further into private and public spaces. From Quito to Nairobi, Moscow to Detroit, hundreds of municipalities have installed cameras equipped with FRT, sometimes promising to feed data to central command centres as part of'safe city' or'smart city' solutions to crime. The COVID-19 pandemic might accelerate their spread.