Hollywood has surely wowed its audience through its varieties of movies. The use of technology and effects has always been a USP of many Hollywood movies. But we are not going to discuss everything; rather we would touch on the simple aspect, the use of biometric technology in movies. Also, in this post we will discuss privacy issues related to celebrities and biometrics.
Many crime, science fiction, and action movies use technology to create images. But one fact you will know is that Hollywood always portrays biometrics the wrong way, at least most of the time.
That’s how:
The police want to find a terrorist / criminal on the loose. They get information that you are in a crowded market. Therefore, they quickly use the facial recognition system on the market CCTV images to identify the person. Actually, facial recognition doesn’t work that fast. It works based on some algorithms and can only be used to match separate images like passport or ID card.
Second, identifying the face of a dead person through a photograph is not so easy as their eyes are usually closed. Many biometric systems will not start monitoring without eyes. And for various other reasons such as light conditions, angles of movement, distances, hairstyles, etc. finding a partner is difficult.
Remember James Bond or Jason Bourne used someone else’s fake fingerprints to scan the machine and gain access to whatever they were looking for? Well actually, the machine could easily identify such fakes. Gaining access to a footprint or dismembered finger does not allow you to enter, as biometric machines are too smart for that. In addition, these agents have a busy day in the field, with the possibility that their hands are dirty or cut, defects that the machine could easily detect. If the authentication is wrong, the machine will request all digital scans, enough time for the criminals to catch our hero / heroine.
Iris recognition is excellent and accurate, but its representation in movies is not as accurate. The scanners are powerful enough to scan your eyes in a fraction of a second and from 5 feet away. But in movies, actors must first stand, then position the eye, and then wait until the scanner scans the entire eye.
Second, many spies and agents wear an eyeball like the one Tom Cruise used to wear in Minority Report. Eyeballs are very sensitive and could easily lose shape, thus falsifying authentication.
Privacy
As the entertainment industry and show business grow, the privacy risks of celebrities grow as well. Once the face becomes absolutely important. Apps can now scan the image of a TV celebrity to give the celebrity’s name.
Insurance companies take body scans of the actors in case they die during production. Therefore, the studios could license the scanned face and paste it on a digital doll with the movement of another actor, affecting the privacy and trust of the original actor. This trend is barely seen, but we all know how fast technology spreads!
In conclusion, do we all want to ignore reality while sitting inside a cinema to enjoy our movie? Things like technology, while wrong, attract the audience’s eyes, allowing them not to think about the details, which is fine. But our job is to share information and we did.