Yesterday, the market watchdog for the digital world presented survey results for the attitude regarding face detection in supermarkets, social networks and for private security purposes. As an outcome, the majority of consumers rejects the use of facial recognition technologies for analysis and advertising purposes and would avoid supermarkets with such practices. For this representative survey, the forsa Institute interviewed 1,001 Internet users via structured online questionnaires.
These are the main results:
- 78 percent of the interviewees are aware of the fact that facial recognition is employed in everyday consumption situations, such as in supermarkets.
- 76 percent of the interviewees reject the evaluation of facial recognition for target group specific advertisement. In particular, the analysis of facial expressions to optimize commercial ads is considered critical by 83 percent of respondents.
- Beneath this skepticism often lie privacy concerns: 84 percent are worried that information about them is collected unnoticed via automated face detection in the supermarket. Accordingly, only a quarter of consumers trust that data collected about them will not be passed on to third parties without permission.
- A similar form of rejection can be observed regarding social media: 90 percent of all users of social networks reject facial recognition used by platform providers, for instance to propose friendship requests.
- On the other hand, 56 percent of the interviewees would agree if surveillance cameras analyze faces at the entrance of a private household for security purposes.
Source: Watchdog for the digital world
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