[spuz]

The opinion of most people here is that facial recognition technology is for the most part creepy if used in a commercial setting. Mine is slightly different. I think it's fine if you want to show me a different advertisement or sign based on an interpretation of my expression. I also think it's ok if you track my position within a mall and see which shops I visit and when. I would draw the line at attaching personally identifiable information to that data such as a name or a photo of my face. Anyone who decides to do that is probably going to cause harm/inconvenience to me (I don't want junk email from shops I happened to visit but didn't buy in).

I should also state that I think the first use of my data is ultimately unprofitable. Will the extra cents you make by advertising cinnabon to depressed looking people or hairdressers to long haired people really offset the cost of developing such a system? If applied to a broad population any customisation effects will be marginal.

I also believe that the non-anonymous tracking system is much more likely to produce value for companies and it would be very tempting when gathering anonymous data to cross reference with actual individual information. My concern about any tracking system is that by the motivation of profit it could easily shift from an ethical to non ethical space.