Drawing on visual culture and surveillance studies, this chapter provides readers with the fundamentals of facial recognition technologies (FRTs), their operating principles, ideological foundations, and socio-technical implications. In particular, it examines the paradigm shift induced by these technologies in the political and visual regime of images. First, the chapter explores FRTs’ technical functioning, detailing the five-stage process from image acquisition to facial recognition. Next, it traces their historical development and deployment from early semi-automated systems to contemporary deep learning applications, highlighting how vested interests and positions shaped their implementation. In addition, it situates FRTs within a broader genealogy of face-reading techniques, examining how they perpetuate discriminatory operations that disproportionately affect already marginalised populations. Furthermore, it analyses how facial images have transitioned from instrumental to operational status in networked surveillance, critically altering the relation between face and identity. Finally, it discusses artistic counterstrategies and obfuscation techniques that challenge not only facial surveillance but also our basic understanding of the face itself.