20
Warning: A city council meeting in Austin changed how I think about facial recognition
I went to a public meeting about police tech six months ago, and they showed a demo of a system that could scan a crowd and match faces against a database with 95% accuracy. The police chief said it would 'solve crimes faster,' but a woman stood up and asked, 'What if it's wrong about my son?' That question stuck with me. Has anyone else seen this tech get rolled out in their town, and what did people say about it?
4 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In4 Comments
sethm461mo ago
Did they try that in Dallas too?
8
jessica1301mo ago
But what about people who don't look like the usual suspects... you know, minorities, activists, or just folks who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? That 95% number is probably based on controlled tests, not real life where lighting is bad and cameras are old. I've seen how these systems mess up more when there's shadows or if someone's wearing a hat. And nobody talks about how the database they're matching against probably has a lot of old mugshots or people who were never charged with anything. That woman was right to be scared, because once you're in that system, good luck getting your face out of it.
7
angela_harris1mo ago
Solve crimes faster" is a scary way to put it when it means one in twenty people could be wrongly targeted. That woman's question about her son is the whole problem right there. They never have a good answer for that.
4