Amazon's Face Recognition Falsely Matched 28 Members of Congress With Mugshots

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Jake Tapper Retweeted:

The ACLU tested the facial-recognition software Amazon offers police. It falsely matched 28 members of Congress with mugshots of people arrested for a crime

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Amazon’s Face Recognition Falsely Matched 28 Members of Congress With Mugshots

By Jacob Snow, Technology & Civil Liberties Attorney, ACLU of Northern California
JULY 25, 2018 | 8:00 AM

TAGS Face Recognition Technology Surveillance Technologies Privacy & Technology

Amazon’s face surveillance technology is the target of growing opposition nationwide, and today, there are 28 more causes for concern. In a test the ACLU recently conducted of the facial recognition tool, called “Rekognition,” the software incorrectly matched 28 members of Congress, identifying them as other people who have been arrested for a crime.

The members of Congress who were falsely matched with the mugshot database we used in the test include Republicans and Democrats, men and women, and legislators of all ages, from all across the country.



Our test used AmazonRekognition to compare images of members of Congress with a database of mugshots. The results included 28 incorrect matches.

The false matches were disproportionately of people of color, including six members of the Congressional Black Caucus, among them civil rights legend Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.). These results demonstrate why Congress should join the ACLU in calling for a moratorium on law enforcement use of face surveillance.

To conduct our test, we used the exact same facial recognition system that Amazon offers to the public, which anyone could use to scan for matches between images of faces. And running the entire test cost us $12.33 — less than a large pizza. ... Using Rekognition, we built a face database and search tool using 25,000 publicly available arrest photos. Then we searched that database against public photos of every current member of the House and Senate. We used the default match settings that Amazon sets for Rekognition.
....

Yeah, but:

So it worked

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Top right is Greg Gianforte. You will best remember him as the Montana Congressman who assaulted a reporter one day before he was elected.

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I was just about to say, doesn't he have an actual mugshot?

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[OregonBlue]

1. This really does need to be stopped. This software frequently identifies the wrong person but

the police won't care. They will have a picture of the person they are looking for in their minds already and the facts won't matter. It also super targets people of color. As if there weren't enough people of color being falsely arrested or murdered by the police already.

[reACTIONary]

2. Are you SURE thst the matches were...

.... were false? Just askin'.