Security News > 2020 > October > Singapore's World-First Face Scan Plan Sparks Privacy Fears
Singapore will become the world's first country to use facial verification in its national ID scheme, but privacy advocates are alarmed by what they say is an intrusive system vulnerable to abuse.
The technology captures a series of photos of a person's face in various lights.
Face scanning technology remains controversial despite its growing use and critics have raised ethical concerns about it in some countries - for instance, law enforcement agencies scanning crowds at large events to look for troublemakers.
Singapore authorities are frequently accused of targeting government critics and taking a hard line on dissent, and activists are concerned about how the face scanning tech will be used.
"The technology is still far from benign," Privacy International research officer Tom Fisher told AFP. He said systems like the one planned for Singapore left "Opportunities for exploitation", such as use of data to track and profile people.