Facial recognition tech has massive race & gender bias & a general inaccuracy rate of 81%. So why are the Met Police rolling it out in the UK's most diverse city from February? I wrote about the context in which the decision sits for @galdemzine gal-dem.com/facial-recogni…
@galdemzine The most important thing for me is to remember that this tech is not going to sit in a vacuum. It's going to feed into all the existing systems that already target and criminalise black and brown people, like stop and search and the Gangs Matrix.
@galdemzine What does this mean? It means that those the police ALREADY see as suspects will find it even harder to get their voices heard when protesting innocence.
@galdemzine A scenario for you: facial recognition identifies a 14 y/o black boy outside a shopping centre as someone on a watchlist. The police haul him away for an intrusive search. He's terrified, says he's not who they're looking for. "But the system says you are mate," the police say.
@galdemzine They've got tech on their side you see. And the tech can't be wrong. So they take his prints, don't listen to his protestations that he's innocent.
But there's been a mistake. The tech has wrongly identified the kid. He's not on any watchlists. He was telling the truth.
But there's been a mistake. The tech has wrongly identified the kid. He's not on any watchlists. He was telling the truth.
@galdemzine Only now his details are on a national database, he's been recorded as being stopped by police. His image too has been captured and stored. They say it will be deleted in 31 days but this often doesn't happen. He's on the system, despite doing nothing wrong.
@galdemzine Spoiler: this isn't a hypothetical scene. This has already happened, in 2018, in Romford. A 14 y/o was arrested and his biometrics taken before they worked out the tech had got it all wrong. (details on pg 20) bit.ly/2RxkKkz
@galdemzine This is the reality of what facial recognition used across London is going to do to black and brown people, especially young black men. None of this tech stands alone; it intersects with existing racial prejudice in policing and will exacerbate the impact of that even further.
