Samsung Display’s New Facial Recognition Trial Ignites Debate Over Employee Privacy 

Key Takeaways

• Samsung Display’s new trial will continuously monitor its remote employees with facial recognition.
• The measures are being enforced to prevent technology leaks from employees.
• The labor union said the “excessive” measures treats employees like “potential criminals.”

Samsung Display is set to trial a facial recognition system for remote employees to prevent tech leakages, raising privacy concerns with the labor union, according to a BusinessKorea  report.

The trial, which launches on September 2nd, will primarily target subcontractors, dispatched workers and telecommuters. 

Continuous Facial Recognition Monitoring

The new system takes six pictures of a remote worker’s face when they first join the remote access program. 

When the images have been registered, the employee will only be able to gain access to the program if recognized as the same person. 

During the shift, the webcam will consistently monitor the employee’s face and if someone else replaces the worker, the screen will lock. 

Samsung Has Faced a Number of Technology Leaks

Samsung Display claims it is enforcing facial recognition measures to prevent future technology leakages.

The company has faced several high-profile technology leaks over the years.

In December 2023, several high-profile Samsung employees were accused of receiving tens of millions of dollars from China’s ChangXin Memory Technologies for illegally sharing confidential 16-nanometer DRAM technologies.

The tech leak caused $1.8 billion in estimated damages to Samsung and significantly narrowed the competitive gap between Samsung and its rival, The Korea Economic Daily reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Developing a DRAM manufacturing process on a nanometer scale usually requires multiple years.

In 2022, Samsung employees accidentally leaked confidential technology information by sharing details with ChatGPT. The popular AI chatbot could then scrape the details and possibly share them with other users.

The Measures Have Faced Firm Criticism

When employers use facial recognition to monitor employees, the line between necessary security and invasive surveillance can be blurred.

Continuous monitoring through facial recognition can create a sense of being constantly watched, leading to concerns about personal privacy and autonomy at work.

The labor union has rallied against Samsung’s “excessive“ measures, claiming that continuous surveillance treats employees like “potential criminals.”

According to the union, the company already has measures in place to prevent technology leakage, including watermarks when accessing technology from outside the company.

“Webcam monitoring should be withdrawn,“ the union stated.

Samsung Recently Dodged a Facial Recognition Lawsuit

In July,  Samsung Electronics America Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. dodged a lawsuit that alleged its facial recognition technology violated Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA).

A group of Illinois residents claimed their tablets and smartphones came pre-installed with a “Gallery application” that automatically scanned new images for faces using Samsung’s “proprietary facial recognition technology.”

Samsung and the plaintiffs disagreed on “whether a private entity is in possession of biometrics when it creates and controls technology that purportedly generates biometrics, even if the entity does not receive or access the data.”

However, the case was dismissed, and Samsung was not found to have violated BIPA.

To “collect, capture, or otherwise obtain” biometric data under BIPA, the court said that the company would have had “to gain control” of biometrics, which Samsung had not done.

Big Tech and Facial Recognition

The biometric space is growing rapidly, and facial recognition technology is one of the leading industries. However, Big Tech is increasingly struggling to balance the technology’s benefits and potential pitfalls.

In May, Microsoft announced it was banning police departments  from using its Azure OpenAI Service for facial recognition.

The move came after the Federal Trade Commission warned that the increased use of biometrics could lead to serious concerns surrounding security and privacy.

In the US, seven in ten adults say they oppose employers using face recognition to analyze workers’ facial expressions, according to 2023 research from the Pew Research Center . However, only 35% of US citizens oppose facial recognition to automatically track the attendance of employees.