[HN Gopher] Police Misuse of Facial Recognition - Three Wrongful...
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       Police Misuse of Facial Recognition - Three Wrongful Arrests and
       Counting
        
       Author : andreyk
       Score  : 42 points
       Date   : 2021-08-12 17:50 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.skynettoday.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.skynettoday.com)
        
       | LorenPechtel wrote:
       | Where's the human in the loop?? I have no problem with the
       | computer pointing out possible bad guys, but that's only
       | *possible* suspect!
       | 
       | Same problem as considering a field drug test to mean anything
       | more than you need to do a real test.
        
         | andreyk wrote:
         | See 'Facial Recognition Should be Used with Care' - the police
         | detectives should have been the 'human in the loop' in these
         | cases, but appear to have done their job poorly in all these
         | cases.
        
           | soco wrote:
           | That's a novel use for AI: excuse for slacking. Joke aside,
           | that's also how most of the "driverless" accidents happened -
           | they expected the human would jump in but they were doing
           | what any human would have done - slacking. Because AI is
           | supposed to help us, right.
        
       | andreyk wrote:
       | Hey HN! I am an editor on this piece, which I think highlights a
       | trend not enough people are aware of. Would definitely welcome
       | feedback / any knowledge wrt these kinds of news stories you
       | think is relevant.
        
         | cratermoon wrote:
         | You should do a piece on how the racial biases used to
         | determine the "correct" color balance for film grew into the
         | algorithms for facial recognition and result in the terrible
         | accuracy for non-white non-males.
         | 
         | https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2020/racial-discriminatio...
        
         | charlescearl wrote:
         | Tawana Petty https://tawanapetty.org/ is a Detroit based
         | activist who has been at the fore front of the movement
         | addressing algorithmic bias in policing.
         | 
         | In a country based on the precept that all Black people are the
         | "bad guy" until proven otherwise, any and all facial
         | surveillance should be ended. References for that statement?
         | How about Angela Davis: Davis, Angela. Abolition Democracy:
         | Beyond Prison, Torture, and Empire. New York: Seven Stories
         | Press, 2005.
        
       | kleene_op wrote:
       | What is missing is figures about how many cases facial
       | recognition helped solve.
       | 
       | Without figures, it's difficult to tell if it brings more
       | troubles than benefits.
       | 
       | It really sucks for those wrongly convicted, but it may cause
       | more harm not to use this technology.
       | 
       | An immediate way to alleviate those injustices would be to
       | instruct police officers that statistical models do not spit
       | absolute truths. Great tools are not a substitute for either
       | thinking nor humanity.
        
         | brg wrote:
         | Along the same lines, I'd be interested in seeing what is the
         | difference in incorrect arrests in communities with facial
         | recognition and without. Its terrible that anyone is falsely
         | accused, but if the use of the technology decreases incorrect
         | arrests thats a valuable trade-off.
        
         | atoav wrote:
         | I'd like to see how many cases facial recognition helped solve
         | compared to just throwing dice.
         | 
         | As a society our decision used to bw that you are not convicted
         | unless proven guilty. This principle is not a minor thing and
         | maybe you choose the wrong thing to optimise here?
        
         | andreyk wrote:
         | True - this article presents a nice overview with more details
         | on that https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/12/technology/facial-
         | recogni...
        
       | vondur wrote:
       | I wonder how it compares to normal police detective work. In
       | theory if a human is there to verify things, these types of
       | mistakes wouldn't happen.
        
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       (page generated 2021-08-12 23:02 UTC)