Coding Faces in Medicine
Last Workshop: Agency and Ethics of Algorithmic Faces in Medicine and Healthcare
13–14 April 2026, Technical University of Munich
While medical researchers, clinicians, and companies often highlight the innovative potential of facial recognition technologies in diagnostic medicine and healthcare, many concerns remain unaddressed from a social and ethical perspective. When human faces become algorithmically coded, valued and diagnosed, the resulting forms of knowledge and practices raise crucial questions. These include issues around trust, responsibility, and accountability, as well as broader societal implications like patient privacy and surveillance.
The Project
The Coding Faces in Medicine project (CoFaMe) addresses the societal implications and ethical challenges posed by facial recognition technologies in the fields of medicine and healthcare. CoFaMe is funded by the Friedrich-Schiedel-Fellowship of the TUM Think Tank at Technical University of Munich.
Project–related publications
Trauttmansdorff , Paul. forthcoming. "Borders and Surveillance." In the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Society. Ed. Rayvon Fouché. New York: Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/acrefore/9780197791219.013.ORE_STS-00007.R1
Trauttmansdorff, Paul. 2025. "Against interoperability? Terrains of technopolitical contestation and the remaking of EU border infrastructure." Big Data & Society 12(2): 1–15.
https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517241307909
Trauttmansdorff, Paul. 2024. "The Digital Transformation of the European Border Regime. The Powers and Perils of Imagining Future Borders." Bristol: Bristol University Press. https://doi.org/10.1332/policypress/9781529235203.001.0001
Klimburg-Witjes, Nina, and Paul Trauttmansdorff, eds. 2023. "Technopolitics and the Making of Europe: Infrastructures of Security." London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003267409
