Facial surveillance is built to identify or track individuals often without their consent. These systems often rely on centralized databases, store images, and include features like watchlists, real-time tracking, and point-of-interest monitoring.
Facial authentication operates under a different framework. It verifies the identity of a known individual for a specific purpose, and only after consent is given.
At Alcatraz, our approach reflects this distinction. Matching occurs locally, on the device. No names, photos, or personally identifiable information are stored or transmitted. Consent is required for enrollment and can be revoked at any time.
We hear this confusion often in conversations with customers and policymakers. That’s why we coined the term facial authentication for physical access control—to clearly separate it from surveillance technologies that behave and function differently.
For too long, biometrics have been treated as a single category. Technologies with fundamentally different architectures and risk profiles are still being grouped together in regulation, public discourse, and even procurement processes.
This overgeneralization makes it harder for organizations to evaluate systems fairly. It also weakens public trust in solutions designed specifically to protect people and their data.
Biometric systems vary widely in how they handle consent, how data is processed, and how privacy is enforced. These are the factors that matter most. Lumping everything under a single label undermines real accountability and progress.
Global enterprises are increasingly standardizing facial authentication for physical access control. They are doing so not because the technology is new, but because it meets their operational, compliance, and employee-experience requirements.
This growing clarity is what’s driving adoption. Organizations aren’t just looking for security, they’re looking for systems they can explain, defend, and trust.
What we’re seeing now is not a theoretical change. It’s already underway in data centers, financial institutions, stadiums, and critical infrastructure sites worldwide.
To keep this progress going, we need to move past generalities and focus on the fundamentals. These are the standards that matter most when evaluating biometric systems:
1. Purpose must be explicit and aligned with consent. Authentication is not surveillance. It is a consent-based process designed to verify identity, not to identify unknown individuals. Use cases must be clearly defined, and that distinction must be preserved across product design, policy, and deployment.
2. Privacy must be embedded in the system architecture. Privacy should not be an external policy. It must be evident in how the system is built. At Alcatraz, matching occurs locally. We do not store or transmit names, photos, or personal identifiers. Consent is documented through formal opt-in workflows, often integrated with platforms like DocuSign. Users retain control and can revoke access at any time.
3. Trust must be earned through transparency and technical integrity. Organizations should evaluate biometric technologies based on how they function. The critical questions are whether the provider can demonstrate control, consent, and security at every layer of the system.
These are the benchmarks that will separate trusted platforms from those that fall short. Facial authentication, when built the right way, protects both people and privacy.