Are they trying to steal my face?

While some people find it funny to participate in #tenyearchallenge (303k posts Instagram as of today), others are concerned that it was initiated by Facebook in order to collect even more personal data for their own sake. It sounds quite logical that it might be a perfect database for creation and training of a mechanism, which will generate an image of a person in different age stage as well as recognize a current age.

“Imagine that you wanted to train a facial recognition mechanism on age-related characteristics and, more specifically, on age progression”, O’Neill.

However, Facebook representatives deny the fact that this challenge is initiated by them and have benefits to their company. Even though they are trying to be convincing, let’s not forget the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal, when data of millions people was used without their agreement.

Why are we so afraid of companies having our face information stored? In fact, a huge amount of data has already been generated on each of us related to our preferences in food, web search and other intimate questions, and we just don’t want to admit it. According to The Guardian, in 2016 already a half of US adults’ faces were stored in police databases. It sounds scary that someone is watching you, but we also should not deny that it can do our lives better.

Firstly, face recognition system can make the World a better place. It can definitely serve the need to find people, who were lost, or those, who committed a crime. Aging part of the mechanism might be especially useful for searching kidnapped children after a long period of time. There is a case when facial recognition helped to find a child after 27 years.

Secondly, it might be an aid for providing a better customer experience using targeting. I can imagine Sephora scanning my face in order not only to know my skin tone, but also my age, making a better recommendations as a result.

It is a personal choice whether or not to raise a concern about privacy of personal data. But if it is inevitable, why not to focus on the bright side?