The two faces of the child in facial recognition industry discourse: biometric capture between innocence and recalcitrance

ABSTRACT

This article explores how the child is evoked in the discursive construction of facial recognition technology. Facial recognition technology is one of the most socially contentious emerging technologies of recent years, heavily criticised for enabling racialized and other forms of social harms. Drawing on data gathered through facial recognition tradeshow ethnographies, and interviews with members of the biometrics industry, we explore how the biometric monitoring of children has gained a prominent place in the industry’s promotion of facial recognition technology as a mode of ‘careful’ surveillance. At the same time, however, the fast-changing face of the growing child is acknowledged as a difficult technical challenge to the efficient development and use of this technology. We argue that in these industry discourses the child is figured as both innocent and recalcitrant, and that the facial recognition industry has productively exploited the tension between these two figurations to legitimate and expand its own enterprise.

KEYWORDS:

• Facial recognition
• biometrics
• child
• aid
• borders
• gambling

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The research in this paper was supported by funding from the Australian Research Council [grant number DP200100189].

Notes on contributors

Christopher O’Neill

Christopher O’Neill [twitter.com/internet_chris] is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Monash node of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society. He completed his PhD at the University of Melbourne in 2020. His doctoral research was in the analysis of body-sensing technologies, such as heart rate monitors and productivity sensors. He studied their historical development and contemporary impact in the workplace, the medical clinic, and the (smart) home. He has published research in leading journals, including New Media & Society, Science, Technology and Human Values, and First Monday [email: [email protected]].

Neil Selwyn

Neil Selwyn [twitter.com/neil_selwyn] is a Distinguished Professor in the Faculty of Education, Monash University who has worked for the past 25 years researching the integration of digital technology into schools, universities and adult learning. Recent books include: ‘What is digital sociology?’ (Polity 2019) [email: [email protected]].

Gavin Smith

Gavin Smith [@gavin_jd_smith] is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the ANU. His research explores the social impacts and implications of surveillance technologies. His book, Opening the Black Box: The Work of Watching (2015, Routledge), provides an ethnographic account of CCTV camera operation, looking at how camera operators subjectively experience the work they perform. His work appears in leading journals such as Body & Society, Theoretical Criminology, The British Journal of Criminology, Big Data & Society, Surveillance & Society, Journal of Medical Internet Research, Critical Public Health, and Urban Studies. He was previously a co-editor of Surveillance & Society and now serves on the Editorial Board of Big Data & Society [email: [email protected]].

Mark Andrejevic

Mark Andrejevic is Professor of Media Studies in the School of Media, Film, and Journalism at Monash University (Monash) and Chief Investigator at the ADM + S Centre’s Monash Node. His research covers the social, political, and cultural impact of digital media, with a focus on surveillance and popular culture. He is the author of four monographs, including, most recently Automated Media, as well as more than 90 academic articles and book chapters. He is a member of the Council for Big Data, Ethics, and Society and heads up the Automated Society Working Group at Monash [email: [email protected]].

Xin Gu

Xin Gu is Senior Lecturer at Monash University. Her work focuses on the transformation of creative cities and the creative economy under different social, economic and political conditions. Xin’s current research concerns the digital creative economy, looking at the democratisation of creativity through vast transformative digital media ecosystems. Her recent publications include Red Creatives (Intellect, 2020) and Re-imagining Creative Cities in Twenty-First Century Asia (Palgrave Macmillan 2020) [email: [email protected]].