Giving Compass' Take:

• According to the Pew Research Center, the majority of U.S. adults trust law enforcement agencies to use facial recognition software responsibly, but do not believe technology companies or advertisers will use it in the same way.

• How would facial recognition be able to address public safety issues? How effective is it in countries that do use it? What are the potential hurdles that come along with this technology?

• Read more about whether or not facial recognition technology makes schools safer. 

The ability of governments and law enforcement agencies to monitor the public using facial recognition was once the province of dystopian science fiction. But modern technology is increasingly bringing versions of these scenarios to life. A recent investigation found that U.S. law enforcement agencies are using state Department of Motor Vehicles records to identify individual Americans without their consent, including those with no criminal record. And countries such as China have made facial recognition technology a cornerstone of their strategies to police the behaviors and activities of their publics.

Despite these high-profile examples from fiction and reality, a new Pew Research Center survey finds that a majority of Americans (56%) trust law enforcement agencies to use these technologies responsibly. A similar share of the public (59%) says it is acceptable for law enforcement to use facial recognition tools to assess security threats in public spaces.

At the same time, the survey finds that this relatively broad acceptance of facial recognition use by law enforcement does not necessarily apply to other entities that might use these technologies. Notably smaller shares of the public say they trust technology companies (36%) or advertisers (18%) to use facial recognition responsibly.

And minorities of the public would find it acceptable for these tools to be used for purposes such as tracking who is entering or leaving apartment buildings (36%), monitoring the attendance of employees at a place of business (30%) or seeing how people respond to public advertising displays in real time (15%).

Read the full article about data on trust of facial recognition technology by Aaron Smith at Pew Research Center.