Facial Recognition Technology: Commercial Uses, Privacy Issues, and Applicable Federal Law

Citation
Government Accountability Office, Facial Recognition Technology: Commercial Uses, Privacy Issues, and Applicable Federal Law (GAO-15-621) (July 30, 2015) (full-text).

Overview
Facial recognition technology &mdash; which can verify or identify an individual from a facial image &mdash; has rapidly improved in performance and now can surpass human performance in some cases. The Department of Commerce has convened stakeholders to review privacy issues related to commercial use of this technology, which GAO was also asked to examine.

This report examines (1) uses of facial recognition technology, (2) privacy issues that have been raised, (3) proposed best practices and industry privacy policies, and (4) potentially applicable privacy protections under federal law.

The scope of this report includes use of the technology in commercial settings but not by government agencies.