I think it is common these days to give up some of our privacy for the sake of convenience. An example is our use social media for a variety of reasons while knowing that the company behind it is making money from our personal information. However, the list of tradeoffs goes on.

In the news this week is another change that is happening globally and I wonder if it will catch on in Canada. The story is about how airports are installing facial recognition technology to try and make air travel more convenient. The idea being that if you let your face be your identifier, it will speed things up as we move through the various security check points that are set up prior to getting on an airplane.

I suppose this might play out in a number of ways, but one thing to watch out for is whether there will be appropriate safeguards in place to make sure this sensitive piece of personal information isn't misused.

When the "naked machine" first appeared at airports in Canada, many people were initially aghast at the level of detail the operator of the machine had access to. Things evolved and the technology actually works in a much more privacy-friendly way. So much so, that I don't mind stepping into the futuristic chamber and having it swirl around me, although I feel like the next step is that it should beam me to my location so I can avoid the plane ride.

I hope that as they roll out facial recognition in airports, privacy pros are involved at the outset. Privacy impact assessments, at the very least, should be used to mitigate any privacy risks associated with the technology. And, if they do this properly, people might learn to trust its implementation and be comfortable with it.

If it's done poorly, however, it will turn people off and there will be backlash — much like there was when the X-ray machine first came onto the scene, before things were course-corrected.

The rollout of this technology also has legal implications. Airlines and airports are subject to Canada's private-sector laws while much of the security within the airport is conducted by public institutions that are governed by our public-sector laws. I'm sure it's no shock to most the people reading this when I say that these laws don't really line up that well anymore. 

All in all, to me this is yet another example of technology and business practices advancing while our federal and provincial legislatures keep their snail's pace.