Facial recognition technologies represent a promising frontier for medicine, offering diagnostic tools potentially more precise than traditional methods. Despite the limited number of current clinical applications, their potential is significant, especially when integrated with artificial intelligence for the analysis of large amounts of data. These technologies could not only accelerate diagnosis and treatment processes, improving healing prospects, but they could also be highly accessible and convenient, as facial biometrics can be more reliable than fingerprints or iris scans. Furthermore, facial recognition could facilitate access to medical services through telemedicine, reducing the need for in–person visits, a crucial advantage in contexts with limited access to healthcare facilities. Finally, while particularly effective for diseases with specific facial manifestations, these technologies could potentially identify a wide range of pathologies, thanks to increasingly intelligent systems and continuously expanding image databases. However, before these technologies can become an effective and appropriate clinical tool, there are important moral issues that deserve to be analysed and publicly discussed. We will address both the moral issues regarding the use of these technologies in medicine and concerns about their use outside the medical context.
Keywords: Bioethics; Artificial Intelligence; Care Ethics; Algorithm; Technology.