Face Recognition Technology: Compulsory Visibility and Its Impact on Privacy and the Confidentiality of Personal Identifiable Images (Law, Governance and Technology Series, 41)

This book examines how face recognition technology is affecting privacy and confidentiality in an era of enhanced surveillance. Further, it offers a new approach to the complex issues of privacy and confidentiality, by drawing on Joseph K in Kafka’s disturbing novel The Trial, and on Isaiah Berlin’s notion of liberty and freedom. Taking into consideration rights and wrongs, protection from harm associated with compulsory visibility, and the need for effective data protection law, the author promotes ethical practices by reinterpreting privacy as a property right. To protect this right, the author advocates the licensing of personal identifiable images where appropriate.

The book reviews American, UK and European case law concerning privacy and confidentiality, the effect each case has had on the developing jurisprudence, and the ethical issues involved. As such, it offers a valuable resource for students of ethico-legal fields, professionals specialising in image rights law, policy-makers, and liberty advocates and activists.

Ian Berle is the specialist assessor for the ‘Legal & Ethical’ module of Staffordshire University’s medical illustration certificate & diploma course. A former Head of Medical Illustration at Barts NHS Health Trust (1982-2008), he holds post-graduate degrees in bioethics and privacy law, and wrote an MPhil thesis on Face Recognition Technology and its effects on privacy and confidentiality. His recent work concerns how the right to one’s own image might be adequately protected, which this work also seeks to address.