The American Civil Liberties Union, in an effort to demonstrate the dangers of face recognition technology, ran photos of members of Congress against a database of mug shots using Amazon Rekognition software. That test incorrectly identified 28 legislators as criminals (cue the jokes - yes, the Congress members were confirmed to be elsewhere at the time). They hope that demonstrating that this risk hits close to home will get Congress more interested in regulating the use of this technology.
The false matches were disproportionately of people of color, including six members of the Congressional Black Caucus, among them civil rights legend Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.). These results demonstrate why Congress should join the ACLU in calling for a moratorium on law enforcement use of face surveillance.
[...] If law enforcement is using Amazon Rekognition, it’s not hard to imagine a police officer getting a “match” indicating that a person has a previous concealed-weapon arrest, biasing the officer before an encounter even begins. Or an individual getting a knock on the door from law enforcement, and being questioned or having their home searched, based on a false identification.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Captival on Saturday July 28 2018, @09:16PM (1 child)
I think the thing undercounted. I'm sure WAY more than than 5% of Congress are criminals.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday July 30 2018, @06:16PM
Yeah, but they commit the kind of crimes that don't get caught, therefore an AI trained based on current prisoners shouldn't detect them.
The thing about AI is that what it does is different from what it's marketed as -- ie, "detecting criminals" vs "detecting prisoners". These are not actually the same task.