It is difficult to imagine anywhere in contemporary society where the concealment of the face in public does not trigger suspicion, if not outright scorn or legal consequences. However, for all the discussion about security and surveillance across various fields of study, the face remains an underemphasized aspect of how space is ordered through the accumulation and circulation of images. In the age of hypervisibility, the face has been overlooked as a battleground. Regimes of micro-surveillance have advanced enormously since Jean Baudrillard declared the end of the "absolute gaze" in pan-optic systems. Today, facial recognition systems (FRSs) are dusted across physical and digital landscapes, embedded in smartphones and even military goggles. FRSs do not rely on a person's active cooperation; tacit participation suffices. However, the ubiquity of these biometric tools do not explain how the unconcealed face has come to be treated as a de facto mode for establishing truth or an empathic human connection.
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