Big Brother Museums Now?

Civil liberties advocates are condemning a UK museum’s use of controversial facial-recognition technology to scan visitors. The World Museum in Liverpool in England used the technology last year as a security measure for a temporary exhibition of objects on loan from China titled “China’s First Emperor and the Terracotta Warriors,” which ran from February to the end of October last year.

In the UK its use is spreading rapidly beyond airports and border crossings. This marks the technology’s first reported use by a national museum. Critics argue that the technology is flawed and possibly discriminatory as well as intrusive, while supporters and the police say it helps reduce crime and protect public safety. [...] In a statement, National Museums Liverpool said that it “used facial recognition technology at the World Museum when there was a heightened security risk during the exhibition.”