IBM: No Facial Recognition? Why? Just Ask Watson
June 19, 2020
Racial tensions are at an all time high due to the recent unnecessary deaths of many black people at the hands of law enforcement. People of all think backgrounds are calling for an elimination of technology that amplifies racial profiling tactics, particularly facial recognition technology. IBM, along with other technology companies, want to support diversity and anti-violent police acts, so Live Mint shares how: “IBM Gets Out Of Facial Recognition Business, Oppose Use For Mass Surveillance.”
CEO of IBM Arvind Krishna stated that her company would no longer sell facial recognition or analysis software for racial profiling and mass surveillance. Mass surveillance is another major fear that people hold when it coms to facial technology. The potential for a huge spy network is possible and if government backs the bill it becomes scarier than Orwell’s imagination.
Facial recognition also perpetuates racial profiling, because the data used to train the AI is usually biased. Most of the data only contains information related to white individuals, because they are the ones designing the technology making their data more readily available. Due to the lack of diverse facial data, current facial recognition technology is prone to more errors with ethnic minorities.
Krishna is right to not offer the technology, especially when it could do more harm than good:
“ ‘IBM firmly opposes and will not condone uses of any technology, including facial recognition technology offered by other vendors, for mass surveillance, racial profiling, violations of basic human rights and freedoms, or any purpose which is not consistent with our values and Principles of Trust and Transparency,’he was quoted as saying in the letter.”
Facial recognition is off the radars for most law enforcement agencies right now, but that does not mean the technology should not be developed. The biggest solution to ensure accuracy is acquiring more diverse data.
One of my DarkCyber colleagues said at Shake Shack a day ago, “Maybe the IBM facial recognition technology does not work, and this was an easy way to get out of sticky ditch.”
Maybe? Watson, what do you think?
Whitney Grace, June 19, 2020
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