United States. A new pew Research Center survey reveals that a majority of Americans rely on law enforcement agencies to use facial recognition technologies responsibly. A similar proportion of the public (59%) say it is acceptable for police to use facial recognition tools to assess security threats in public spaces.
At the same time, the survey reveals that the relatively widespread acceptance of law enforcement's use of facial recognition does not necessarily apply to other entities that might use the technologies. Smaller audience shares say they trust tech companies (36%) or advertisers (18%) to use facial recognition responsibly. And minorities in the public would find it acceptable for these tools to be used for purposes such as tracking who enters or leaves apartment buildings (36%), monitoring employee attendance at a place of business (30%), or seeing how people respond to public advertising displays in real time (15%).
Attitudes also differ between demographic groups. For example, a substantially smaller proportion of young adults think it is acceptable for police to use facial recognition to assess security threats in public spaces relative to older Americans.
The American public has a broad awareness of automated facial recognition technologies that can identify someone based on an image or video that includes their face. The majority of Americans, 86% in total, have heard at least something about facial recognition technology, and 25% say they have heard a lot about these systems. Only 13% of the public has heard nothing about facial recognition.
Knowledge of systems is relatively widespread in a variety of demographic groups, although there is modest variation in knowledge based on factors such as educational level. Research shows that 95% of Americans with a college degree or higher have heard at least something about facial recognition technology, and 28% of college graduates say they've heard a lot about it.
But overall consciousness drops to 79% (with 19% saying they've heard a lot) among those with a high school diploma or less. Awareness is also slightly higher among those with higher household incomes compared to those with lower incomes; between men in relation to women; and among whites in relation to blacks and Hispanics.
