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A24 TECHNOLOGY
Friday 20 december 2019
Why some cities and states balk at face recognition tech

By MATT O'BRIEN Whitfield, told the city's po- A review of the industry's the legal, ethical and pub- pects for other crimes.
AP Technology Writer lice commissioner, Cheryl leading facial recognition licity risks of a technology Smith said the technology
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) Clapprood, who is white. algorithms by the National that is facing backlash from would wrongly identify too
— Police departments many people, especially
around the U.S. are asking women and people of
citizens to trust them to use color. The executive has
facial recognition software warned that unregulated
as another handy tool in facial recognition could un-
their crime-fighting tool- leash "mass surveillance on
box. But some lawmakers an unprecedented scale,"
— and even some technol- though he's opposed to an
ogy giants — are hitting the outright ban. Microsoft in
brakes. November hired an attor-
Are fears of an all-seeing, ney to speak out against a
artificially intelligent security proposed ban in Portland,
apparatus overblown? Not Maine.
if you look at China, where Other companies including
advancements in com- Amazon, which markets a
puter vision applied to vast face identification system
networks of street cameras called Rekognition to law
have enabled authorities enforcement, have shown
to track members of ethnic fewer qualms about selling
minority groups for signs of their technology to police.
subversive behavior. Some law enforcement
American police officials agencies feed images
and their video surveillance In this Thursday, Oct. 17, 2019 photo, a video surveillance camera hangs on a pole outside City from video surveillance into
industry partners contend Hall in Springfield, Mass. software that can search
that won't happen here. Associated Press government databases or
They are pushing back social media for a possible
against a movement by "I cannot approve some- Institute of Standards and privacy, civil liberties and match.
cities, states and federal thing that's going to target Technology found they racial justice advocates, Todd Pastorini, general
legislators to ban or curtail me more than it will target were more than 99% ac- not to mention bipartisan manager at biometric fo-
the technology's use. And you." curate when matching concern in Congress. rensics company Data-
the efforts aren't confined Clapprood defended the high-quality head shots to Axon, which supplies body- Works Plus, said it's impor-
to typical bastions of liberal technology and asked the a database of other frontal worn cameras to most of tant to distinguish between
activism that enacted bans council to trust her to pur- poses. California's big cities and real-time crowd surveil-
this year: San Francisco, sue it carefully. "The facial But trying to identify a face is the biggest provider na- lance — which is rare in the
Oakland, Berkeley and the recognition technology from a video feed — a po- tionwide, had already U.S. — and the "extremely
Boston suburbs of Somer- does not come along and tentially useful technique formed an AI ethics board effective" method of run-
ville and Brookline. drop a net from the sky and for detectives — can cause of outside experts that con- ning images through a pool
Take the western Massa- carry you off to prison," she accuracy rates to plunge. cluded facial recognition of known police mugshots
chusetts city of Springfield, said, noting that it could NIST found that recognition technology isn't yet reliable or driver's license photos to
a former manufacturing serve as a useful investiga- accuracy could fall below enough to justify its use on help identify a suspect.
hub where a majority of tive tool by flagging want- 10% when using ceiling- police cameras. False iden- "Society and the public are
the 155,000 residents are ed suspects. mounted cameras com- tification could lead some- going to get frustrated" if
Latino or black, and where The council hasn't yet act- monly found in stores and one to be hurt or killed, said governments block law en-
police brutality and mis- ed, and the Springfield government buildings. Axon CEO Rick Smith. forcement from adopting a
conduct lawsuits have cost mayor has threatened to The agency hasn't studied Even if facial recognition technology that keeps im-
the city millions of dollars. veto the proposal that Ra- the performance of facial software was perfectly ac- proving, he said.
Springfield police say they mos plans to re-introduce in recognition on body cam- curate, Smith said in an in- Among his South Carolina
have no plans to deploy January. era footage, although ex- terview, the ability to track company's biggest face-
facial recognition systems, Similar debates across the perts generally believe that people's whereabouts rais- matching clients are De-
but some city councilors country are highlighting ra- its often-jumpy video will es constitutional and priva- troit and New York City, the
are moving to block any fu- cial concerns and dueling render the technique even cy concerns. "Do we want latter of which first adopted
ture government use of the interpretations of the tech- less reliable. everybody who walks near facial recognition in 2011
technology anyway. nology's accuracy. In October, California Gov. a police officer to get their and also uses software from
At an October hearing on "I wish our leadership would Gavin Newsom signed a face identified and logged French company Idemia.
the subject, Springfield City look at the science and not temporary ban on police in a database?" he said. "I'd absolutely be op-
Councilor Orlando Ramos at the hysteria," said Lan- departments using facial Microsoft last year turned posed to a ban," New York
said he doesn't want to caster, California, Mayor R. recognition with body down an unnamed Califor- City Police Commissioner
take any chances. "It would Rex Parris, whose city north cameras. Some other states nia police agency's request James O'Neill told reporters
only lead to more racial dis- of Los Angeles is working have similar restrictions. to equip all police cars and this fall.
crimination and racial pro- to install more than 10,000 While California's three- body cameras with Mi- O'Neill, who retired in early
filing," he said, citing stud- streetlight cameras Parris year moratorium was op- crosoft's facial recognition December, added that fa-
ies that found higher error says could monitor known posed by law enforcement software, the company's cial recognition hits are just
rates for facial recognition pedophiles and gang groups, companies that president and chief legal one part of an investiga-
software used to identify members. "There are ways provide video-surveillance officer Brad Smith wrote in tion.
women and people with to build in safeguards." equipment have mostly a new book on tech policy. "There is so much video in
darker skin tones. Research suggests that fa- reacted with shrugs. Many He said police wanted to New York City today that to
"I'm a black woman and cial recognition systems businesses were already match a photo of anyone not use facial recognition
I'm dark," another Spring- can be accurate, at least moving carefully before pulled over, even routinely, would be irresponsible," he
field councilor, Tracye under ideal conditions. subjecting themselves to against a database of sus- said.q