A new epoch of face analytics: technological evolution through ethical and legal challenges

Abstract Social media users upload millions of photographs every day increasing the availability of facial images. Data lakes, artificial intelligence (AI), and increasing computational power facilitate the extraction of personal features from a photograph of a face. Our study found that large amounts of facial biometric data are harvested. This development is an unprecedented challenge to privacy. To understand the state of the technology and its impact on ethics and personal data privacy, we reviewed the last three decades of research in terms of advances in enabling technologies, social media, facial recognition, awareness or privacy, and legislation. We identified four epochs based on the significant advances and changes in how we share data, perceive privacy, and try to limit potential damage caused by these new technologies through regulation, laws, and social norms. We posit that we are reaching another epoch—one in which AI is aiming to predict biological, genetic, and neuropsychological features from pictures. We conclude that we are at a new AI frontier for which there is an urgent need to understand and mitigate the threats to privacy posed by advances in data mining of face biometrics for human profile prediction as they relate to ethics, society, and regulatory framework.