Faception claim to identify paedophiles from their faces draws controversy

Claims by Israeli facial personality profiling company Faception that it can identify paedophiles, terrorists and white-collar criminals from their faces prompted a backlash about their nature and accuracy.

Faception's system collects images of people's faces from photographs and video, and encodes and maps their facial features on to a set of 15 proprietary 'classifiers', including academic, terrorist, and bingo-player. Faception claimed that it could typically classify people with around 80 percent confidence.

Critics took to the mainstream and social media to argue there is no scientific basis for the claim, as facial features are not a reliable indicator of an individual's likelihood of committing a crime. They also noted that the technology is likely to produce false positives, misidentifying innocent people.

The approach, they said, is based on a flawed assumption that paedophiles have a distinct "look" or facial characteristics that can be detected. It was also noted that the technology could lead to discrimination and stigmatisation of individuals who are misidentified, and that the company had not provided sufficient evidence or peer-reviewed research to support its claims.

More broadly, experts have also raised concerns about the potential misuse of facial personality profiling, including as an infringement on civil liberties and human rights, its potential for abuse by law enforcement or other authorities, and the lack of transparency and accountability in the development and deployment of the technology. Some commentators cited a contract that Faception itself had signed with an unnamed homeland security agency.

The controversy highlighted the need for rigorous scientific evaluation when developing and deploying personality profiling technologies, particularly those that claim to predict sensitive or stigmatising characteristics.