Eight months pregnant and arrested after false facial recognition match(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
Eight months pregnant and arrested after false facial recognition match
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/06/technology/facial-recognition-false-arrest.html
97 comments
> The Wayne County prosecutor, Kym Worthy, considers the arrest warrant in Ms. Woodruff’s case to be “appropriate based upon the facts,” according to a statement issued by her office.
Facial recognition is not factual. It is explicitly inferential.
Facial recognition is not factual. It is explicitly inferential.
Realistically, what do you expect the DA to say? As part of the job, admitting fault for anything pre-emptively goes against all the attributes that get you the job in the first place
Fantasy scenario: Voters actually notice such "defend any half-wit thuggery, so long as the perp's have badges" behavior by elected officials, and reliably punish offenders at the ballot box.
In theory, every voter who claims to be pro-women's rights, or pro-civil rights, or liberal, or ... should be eager to make this fantasy come true.
In practice... Hahahaha!!! Yeah, right.
So - why the huge gulf? Could it be that the great majority of voters claiming such moral cred are just Performative Activists, who don't actually give a crap?
In theory, every voter who claims to be pro-women's rights, or pro-civil rights, or liberal, or ... should be eager to make this fantasy come true.
In practice... Hahahaha!!! Yeah, right.
So - why the huge gulf? Could it be that the great majority of voters claiming such moral cred are just Performative Activists, who don't actually give a crap?
It's very hard for a layperson to research DA candidates and then choose the optimal one. That's assuming a jurisdiction where the position is elected and there are any worthwhile candidates in the first place.
If the position is appointed then you have yet another layer of indirection and competing factors for the voter to evaluate.
Even for presidential elections it's hard to feel great about your vote... Democracy kinda sucks.
If the position is appointed then you have yet another layer of indirection and competing factors for the voter to evaluate.
Even for presidential elections it's hard to feel great about your vote... Democracy kinda sucks.
> It's very hard for a layperson to research DA candidates and...
True. But in a world where the elderly Secretary of the Methodist Ladies Gardening Society has no problem keeping track of donated funds and flower bulb locations and volunteer weeding in her 3-ring binder... it would be incredibly easy for a few people who actually cared to keep track of DA behavior, year after year, as a side hobby.
Bottom-end web hosting is ~free, to make that information available to the public.
Yet ~nobody seems to be doing that. Are the police and DA's quietly shutting them down? Perhaps...but 10000X the quantity of hot-headed political attack material is freely available on the web. And it's hard to assert that those police and DA's are every-so-quietly and -competently doing that by night, while regularly bungling similar work by day.
Or...is the problem that the modern version of "caring" about such such police and Prosecutor incompetence and misconduct is 100% performative activism, and 0% interest in taking any action which might lead to "positive" change? It's not like that behavior isn't seen on other issues. Lots of well-to-do liberal neighborhoods will poll as being very strongly in favor of (say) affordable housing for less-well-off people. But if there's any hint that such housing might appear near their precious neighborhood ...yeah. Don't expect them to behave the way that poll suggested they would.
True. But in a world where the elderly Secretary of the Methodist Ladies Gardening Society has no problem keeping track of donated funds and flower bulb locations and volunteer weeding in her 3-ring binder... it would be incredibly easy for a few people who actually cared to keep track of DA behavior, year after year, as a side hobby.
Bottom-end web hosting is ~free, to make that information available to the public.
Yet ~nobody seems to be doing that. Are the police and DA's quietly shutting them down? Perhaps...but 10000X the quantity of hot-headed political attack material is freely available on the web. And it's hard to assert that those police and DA's are every-so-quietly and -competently doing that by night, while regularly bungling similar work by day.
Or...is the problem that the modern version of "caring" about such such police and Prosecutor incompetence and misconduct is 100% performative activism, and 0% interest in taking any action which might lead to "positive" change? It's not like that behavior isn't seen on other issues. Lots of well-to-do liberal neighborhoods will poll as being very strongly in favor of (say) affordable housing for less-well-off people. But if there's any hint that such housing might appear near their precious neighborhood ...yeah. Don't expect them to behave the way that poll suggested they would.
Did you ever vote? Between the very limited number of political leaning options available and the personal morality of the candidates, voters can never vote for a candidate they want but only for the candidate they least don't want.
Yes (for quite a few decades now). I've noticed that elections often feature both incumbents and challengers. The latter often attack decisions and statements made by the former - "He voted to raise your taxes!", "Look at [video] what he said about X!", etc. By numerous, and seemingly well-researched accounts, an enormous about of behind-the-scenes political work goes into identifying the very best combinations of incumbent behavior and voter hot buttons, to precision-target those expensive (paid political advertising) attacks.
If all the politicians, wanna-be politicians, and their armies of consultants and pollsters, seem to believe that where it counts, in the polling booth, voters don't actually care about a certain issue...might all those amply-motivated experts possibly be correct?
If all the politicians, wanna-be politicians, and their armies of consultants and pollsters, seem to believe that where it counts, in the polling booth, voters don't actually care about a certain issue...might all those amply-motivated experts possibly be correct?
This is a boring thought, but it's my boring thought, and I'll post it because I kind of agreed with you until I realized it was kind of me you were kind of railing against.
If you made a list of things that "the other side" truly cares about, it's probably mostly what you care about.
When you strip away what people are currently angry about, people mostly care about things that come down to "am I making the world better for my (possibly putative) children."
It's a reductive view, but I think it's true in a useful way. That is to say, I think it's true for most people in a pairwise fashion, so it's probably true of you, and it's probably a useful way to think about other people you meet, most of the time.
In the context of social media, it is profitable for people to be performative because that drives engagement and engagement is profitable. For this reason, social media is a terrible proxy for other people because is not one to one (pairwise) as above, but one to many. Thus, social media is a massive distortion if you spend time a lot of time on it, or if you spend a lot of time reading the thoughts of people who spend a lot of time on it[1]. I thought of giving exaggerated examples of "the other side" here but I don't even have to draw the pictures, the caricatures literally draw themselves if you think for just a moment. For both sides. Which is kind of what I'm driving at.
Most people are essentially like you though, they just want things to be better. They aren't performance artists gunning for virtue signaling engagement, they just disagree with you about the implementation details. Sometimes these disagreements truly are utter incompatibilities, it's true. But there's an entire industry that now exists in convincing people with the same broad desires that the other side desires only to dash their hopes and dreams. My boring thought is that, broadly, there's a breathtaking overlap between what you want and what the (call them) deplorables on the other side want, and you're mostly just vigorously disagreeing on the cause célèbre you've been told is the keystone to everything this season.
[1]: https://www.niemanlab.org/2022/04/the-new-york-times-would-r...
If you made a list of things that "the other side" truly cares about, it's probably mostly what you care about.
When you strip away what people are currently angry about, people mostly care about things that come down to "am I making the world better for my (possibly putative) children."
It's a reductive view, but I think it's true in a useful way. That is to say, I think it's true for most people in a pairwise fashion, so it's probably true of you, and it's probably a useful way to think about other people you meet, most of the time.
In the context of social media, it is profitable for people to be performative because that drives engagement and engagement is profitable. For this reason, social media is a terrible proxy for other people because is not one to one (pairwise) as above, but one to many. Thus, social media is a massive distortion if you spend time a lot of time on it, or if you spend a lot of time reading the thoughts of people who spend a lot of time on it[1]. I thought of giving exaggerated examples of "the other side" here but I don't even have to draw the pictures, the caricatures literally draw themselves if you think for just a moment. For both sides. Which is kind of what I'm driving at.
Most people are essentially like you though, they just want things to be better. They aren't performance artists gunning for virtue signaling engagement, they just disagree with you about the implementation details. Sometimes these disagreements truly are utter incompatibilities, it's true. But there's an entire industry that now exists in convincing people with the same broad desires that the other side desires only to dash their hopes and dreams. My boring thought is that, broadly, there's a breathtaking overlap between what you want and what the (call them) deplorables on the other side want, and you're mostly just vigorously disagreeing on the cause célèbre you've been told is the keystone to everything this season.
[1]: https://www.niemanlab.org/2022/04/the-new-york-times-would-r...
> Facial recognition is not factual. It is explicitly inferential.
The article explicitly stated that the victim picked her photo out of a line-up. The facial recognition was NOT the basis for the arrest.
"Five days after the carjacking, the police report said, the detective assigned to the case asked the victim to look at the mug shots of six Black women, commonly called a “six-pack photo lineup.” Ms. Woodruff’s photo was among them. He identified Ms. Woodruff as the woman he had been with. That was the basis for her arrest, according to the police report. (The police did not say whether another woman has since been charged in the case.)"
The article explicitly stated that the victim picked her photo out of a line-up. The facial recognition was NOT the basis for the arrest.
"Five days after the carjacking, the police report said, the detective assigned to the case asked the victim to look at the mug shots of six Black women, commonly called a “six-pack photo lineup.” Ms. Woodruff’s photo was among them. He identified Ms. Woodruff as the woman he had been with. That was the basis for her arrest, according to the police report. (The police did not say whether another woman has since been charged in the case.)"
What is the likelihood of the computer picking somebody who doesn’t closely resemble the perp for the photo lineup?
Then what is the likelihood of the victim being misled by the doppelgänger the computer found?
It is ridiculous to pretend like this wasn’t a software pick.
Then what is the likelihood of the victim being misled by the doppelgänger the computer found?
It is ridiculous to pretend like this wasn’t a software pick.
> It is ridiculous to pretend like this wasn’t a software pick.
It is ridiculous to pretend this WAS just a software pick when the article is clear that the victim picked the woman's photo from a line-up of MULTIPLE photos.
It is ridiculous to pretend this WAS just a software pick when the article is clear that the victim picked the woman's photo from a line-up of MULTIPLE photos.
And who picked the line-up?
zamalek(2)
I mean, the fact is, there was a facial recognition match…
We probably agree that an arrest warrant is not “appropriate based on the facts,” but that’s a different matter.
We probably agree that an arrest warrant is not “appropriate based on the facts,” but that’s a different matter.
The fact is I had a dream in which she flied on the broom and cackled...
We probably agree that a hanging is not "appropriate based on the facts," but that's a different matter.
Detroit has had problem after problem with facial recognition software. But arresting a woman eight months pregnant after the victim identified an eight year old photo should never have happened. She was only in the system in the first place because of an expired drivers license.
The issue here is procedural, not facial recognition per se.
There ought to be a sensible procedure on how to approach people who have been flagged by facial recognition.
Now, I don't know what is the normal procedure in the US when police think they have recognised someone who's wanted. Perhaps they do exactly the same as they did to that woman in any case...
At least in countries where everyone carries an ID card police could ask for ID first or the person could show their ID to at least and hopefully keep the police in "not sure, let's go easy" mode.
There ought to be a sensible procedure on how to approach people who have been flagged by facial recognition.
Now, I don't know what is the normal procedure in the US when police think they have recognised someone who's wanted. Perhaps they do exactly the same as they did to that woman in any case...
At least in countries where everyone carries an ID card police could ask for ID first or the person could show their ID to at least and hopefully keep the police in "not sure, let's go easy" mode.
> Perhaps they do exactly the same as they did to that woman in any case..
It's arguable than in most instances they don't overreact and throw pregnant women into jail for half a day. In a country of 330,000,000 people, you would expect to see stories like this all day, every day, if it were even a little bit routine. The fact that this is national news gives some idea how out of the ordinary it is.
It's arguable than in most instances they don't overreact and throw pregnant women into jail for half a day. In a country of 330,000,000 people, you would expect to see stories like this all day, every day, if it were even a little bit routine. The fact that this is national news gives some idea how out of the ordinary it is.
This is a dangerous abductive leap: the victim here is one of six people who were incorrectly arrested due to faulty facial recognition, in just a single mid-sized city. Not all of them received national news stories, and almost certainly never will.
We're reading (rightfully) about this woman's story because it has all of the "right" parts: her innocence is painfully obvious, she's pregnant, a professional, a working mother of two, etc. There are others just like her, and the evidence we have points to there being many others just like her; they deserve attention as well, and not to be erased as statistical anomalies.
We're reading (rightfully) about this woman's story because it has all of the "right" parts: her innocence is painfully obvious, she's pregnant, a professional, a working mother of two, etc. There are others just like her, and the evidence we have points to there being many others just like her; they deserve attention as well, and not to be erased as statistical anomalies.
> This is a dangerous abductive leap
I think I could make a plausibly convincing argument that the rate of abuse is low enough that the damage to police<->public relationship from media playing up these incidents has actually led to a more dangerous situation than the incidents themselves.
Not quite ready to go there, but I think it's worth at least considering that everyone can fall prey to media hype and blow little things entirely out of proportion, leading to a worse overall outcome. We do want to improve oversight of the police, but making them out as a public enemy seems like it might be counterproductive.
I think I could make a plausibly convincing argument that the rate of abuse is low enough that the damage to police<->public relationship from media playing up these incidents has actually led to a more dangerous situation than the incidents themselves.
Not quite ready to go there, but I think it's worth at least considering that everyone can fall prey to media hype and blow little things entirely out of proportion, leading to a worse overall outcome. We do want to improve oversight of the police, but making them out as a public enemy seems like it might be counterproductive.
We live in an open society: the public is entitled to know when the police arrest citizens based on faulty evidence. Nobody made them perform an arrest here or in the other five cases; any damage to the police's image in the eyes of the public can be identified solely with their own actions.
In this situation, the reporting seems pretty dispassionate to me (arguably more than it should be, given that a pregnant woman was arrested for a crime she manifestly could not have committed). I don't see a lack of proportion here.
In this situation, the reporting seems pretty dispassionate to me (arguably more than it should be, given that a pregnant woman was arrested for a crime she manifestly could not have committed). I don't see a lack of proportion here.
Or she’s one of the few with the resources & social connections to get this on the country’s radar.
> There ought to be a sensible procedure on how to approach people who have been flagged by facial recognition.
I would suggest 'not'.
I would suggest 'not'.
The police found the person identified by the facial recognition and eyewitness, how would checking her ID help?
Did anyone read the story?
The victim physically picked the woman out of a lineup of mug shot photos placed in front of him. The software placed the woman’s photo in the lineup but the victim of the crime literally ID’d her.
Wrongly, of course, but seem like a pretty crucial detail. This is more of an old fashioned police are idiots story than anything else.
Like how about investigating instead of just arresting her. Like was she near the crime, did she have an alibi? Etc.
The victim physically picked the woman out of a lineup of mug shot photos placed in front of him. The software placed the woman’s photo in the lineup but the victim of the crime literally ID’d her.
Wrongly, of course, but seem like a pretty crucial detail. This is more of an old fashioned police are idiots story than anything else.
Like how about investigating instead of just arresting her. Like was she near the crime, did she have an alibi? Etc.
I just can't get over how being 8 months pregnant (7 and half months at the time of the crime) was not considered an alibi, or at least considered.
"Wait, the person who reported the crime didn't mention that, surely he would have noticed while they were drinking and fucking and reported it as an obvious distinguishing feature!?"
But nope, just follow through, and I'm willing to bet that for every step in the process the people involved thought it was silly too, but "just followed the system", either because they had no power to do anything else, or out of apathy, or maybe both.
Literally no one won with this: the police and criminal justice system wasted time on an obvious wild goose chase, the victim wasn't helped, and presumably more victims will be created and thus even more work for police.
"Wait, the person who reported the crime didn't mention that, surely he would have noticed while they were drinking and fucking and reported it as an obvious distinguishing feature!?"
But nope, just follow through, and I'm willing to bet that for every step in the process the people involved thought it was silly too, but "just followed the system", either because they had no power to do anything else, or out of apathy, or maybe both.
Literally no one won with this: the police and criminal justice system wasted time on an obvious wild goose chase, the victim wasn't helped, and presumably more victims will be created and thus even more work for police.
I read it.
The article gives a perfect description of how it happened. The software picked her because she looked like the criminal, and then they put her in the lineup.
They wouldn’t have had a photo lineup without the software.
That’s the whole point. They use the fig leaf of the victim ID, to cover the fact that it’s just facial recognition at the core. The article points out how likely somebody is to mis-ID somebody who the computer has already found is a likely match.
Sure, blame the police. But for what? For using facial recognition to ID and arrest people!
The article gives a perfect description of how it happened. The software picked her because she looked like the criminal, and then they put her in the lineup.
They wouldn’t have had a photo lineup without the software.
That’s the whole point. They use the fig leaf of the victim ID, to cover the fact that it’s just facial recognition at the core. The article points out how likely somebody is to mis-ID somebody who the computer has already found is a likely match.
Sure, blame the police. But for what? For using facial recognition to ID and arrest people!
This is actually a really good point. My understanding of traditional line ups (do not take my word for this, at all) is that cops put someone(s) in the lineup because they have reason to believe that person is a suspect for some reason, and then then the victim is supposed to pick them out from among other random people. If the entire lineup is selected to be people who "look like the suspect", and, in fact, that's why every one of them is there, then the victim picking them seems to be A) much sketchier and B) much less valuable.
The proper way to use this tool seems to be
1. Find all the people who look similar to the low quality pic we have of the suspect.
2. Investigate those people to see if they could have done it.
3. Arrest someone who you hopefully now have additional evidence against besides just "they look like a grainy photo of the suspect"
Just throwing a bunch of people who look like the suspect at the victim and just arresting whoever the victim picks seems completely insane. But also, like it doesn't have too much to do with "Facial recognition" broadly speaking and more to do with completely idiotic investigative practices.
The proper way to use this tool seems to be
1. Find all the people who look similar to the low quality pic we have of the suspect.
2. Investigate those people to see if they could have done it.
3. Arrest someone who you hopefully now have additional evidence against besides just "they look like a grainy photo of the suspect"
Just throwing a bunch of people who look like the suspect at the victim and just arresting whoever the victim picks seems completely insane. But also, like it doesn't have too much to do with "Facial recognition" broadly speaking and more to do with completely idiotic investigative practices.
I assumed only one of the photos looked like the perp, which changes it quite a bit. Makes it even worse. How is the person supposed to not pick the facial recognized one at that point? At least if all 6 look like the perp, he might have doubt that he can properly ID them.
Half of the problem with these tools is that software companies have oversold their competence to a wild degree, to the point where it is trusted as much as a DNA test. "The AI said it's her". No further thinking is required, such as thinking about what photo the AI used, whether an 8-months pregnant woman really had sex with this guy before the stick up, etc. Trust the fancy computer.
But I also don't think it's too cynical to believe that at this point, almost everybody up and down the chain knows that these tools don't work very well, but what they like is that they are allowed to defer to these tools. It's like how nobody is fired for buying IBM -- nobody is at fault for relying on the algorithm.
This applies to many domains, even consumer tech stuff, hiring practices, etc. Algorithms are just a way to have a color by numbers process where employees have no agency and deserve very little pay, and management has no responsibility and cannot be blamed for mistakes.
But I also don't think it's too cynical to believe that at this point, almost everybody up and down the chain knows that these tools don't work very well, but what they like is that they are allowed to defer to these tools. It's like how nobody is fired for buying IBM -- nobody is at fault for relying on the algorithm.
This applies to many domains, even consumer tech stuff, hiring practices, etc. Algorithms are just a way to have a color by numbers process where employees have no agency and deserve very little pay, and management has no responsibility and cannot be blamed for mistakes.
DNA testing is also significantly less reliable than the police would have you and I believe[1].
HN applies ample and eager skepticism to all kinds of scientific and science-adjacent fields; I eagerly await the day that we do the same for forensic "science."
[1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/a-reaso...
HN applies ample and eager skepticism to all kinds of scientific and science-adjacent fields; I eagerly await the day that we do the same for forensic "science."
[1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/a-reaso...
I haven't read your link yet, but fair point, I am aware there are definitely some issues with DNA testing as practiced by the justice system, but my prior was that when comparing facial recognition to DNA testing, using ideal conditions for both, DNA testing is on far surer footing than facial recognition -- and the ideal conditions for DNA testing are far more attainable than those for facial recognition. For example, I believe the people acquitted based on DNA testing are usually acquitted for good reason, and not just because it makes me feel good, but I'll read your article.
I read the story. The fact that the software produced a lineup rather than singling her out is more or less immaterial; what matters is that it was trusted at all (when, as TFA mentions, it appears to be particularly unreliable with pictures of black people).
More than one party can share responsibility in a situation, and in this situation both the police and the software should have blame identified with them.
More than one party can share responsibility in a situation, and in this situation both the police and the software should have blame identified with them.
The software being trusted to pick out similar faces is a GREAT ADVANCE IN SOLVING CRIMES because it scales the process going on in a photo lineup. But it's only being trusted to pick out similar faces. There will ALWAYS be similar faces. It's doing the same part of the task as a photo lineup does.
The point is that there has to be MORE than "This person has a similar face". It's a confirmation step for suspects that already exist, or for whom you can find other strong circumstantial evidence for. You have an unlimited supply of similar faces and you don't get to just choose one of them.
The great problems with AI tools mostly arise from the fact that the supposed expert users were never taught what the tools do, or how causal inference works - how to discern reality from the evidence available, how to test hypotheses, how to change your reasoning to be valid in the face of wildly disparate scales. If you don't have at least the beginning of Bayesian probability, and you're feeding large datasets into policing, you have no fucking clue what you're doing and your ignorance is immediately dangerous.
The point is that there has to be MORE than "This person has a similar face". It's a confirmation step for suspects that already exist, or for whom you can find other strong circumstantial evidence for. You have an unlimited supply of similar faces and you don't get to just choose one of them.
The great problems with AI tools mostly arise from the fact that the supposed expert users were never taught what the tools do, or how causal inference works - how to discern reality from the evidence available, how to test hypotheses, how to change your reasoning to be valid in the face of wildly disparate scales. If you don't have at least the beginning of Bayesian probability, and you're feeding large datasets into policing, you have no fucking clue what you're doing and your ignorance is immediately dangerous.
No crimes were solved here. We can't take a thing that literally did nothing except cost taxpayer money, police time, and stress for a pregnant woman and declare victory for it.
> It's doing the same part of the task as a photo lineup does.
It's doing something subtly different, and arguably pernicious: a lineup is meant to contain a variety of individuals of varying similarities, so that the person selecting from the lineup are themselves tested in their recollection. We have no evidence that this system is being used in this way; instead, it seems to be finding the closest match in an existing dataset under the assumption that anybody who's ever been photographed by the police is permanently a criminal suspect.
> It's doing the same part of the task as a photo lineup does.
It's doing something subtly different, and arguably pernicious: a lineup is meant to contain a variety of individuals of varying similarities, so that the person selecting from the lineup are themselves tested in their recollection. We have no evidence that this system is being used in this way; instead, it seems to be finding the closest match in an existing dataset under the assumption that anybody who's ever been photographed by the police is permanently a criminal suspect.
>instead, it seems to be finding the closest match in an existing dataset under the assumption that anybody who's ever been photographed by the police is permanently a criminal suspect.
So is a witness, for the most part, they're just logistically challenged. Which is why photo lineups are, in my alternate universe where everybody understands probability and causal inference (because we require 4-year degrees in the science of criminology), a specific tool to discover specific things rather than an instantaneous indictment. There are myriad things wrong with using them, and if the detective doesn't understand that or worse wants to exploit that, the detective should be regarded no differently than the beat cop shooting their gun into the crowd to scare it off.
https://lawcomic.net/guide/?page_id=5
Similarly: A detective's hunch about whether the person being interrogated committed a crime is a powerful tool. We just don't throw people in prison based on that alone. We're getting to the point that we could train an AI to develop such hunches, and that could be valuable. But we can't just throw people in prison based on that alone. We need to confirm such things with external evidence.
Just like we need to confirm a single-eyewitness recollection or a rough photo, rather than just measure that recollection & numerically characterize that photo without any indication (or more commonly, with a 100% fraudulent indication) of probability of matching.
So is a witness, for the most part, they're just logistically challenged. Which is why photo lineups are, in my alternate universe where everybody understands probability and causal inference (because we require 4-year degrees in the science of criminology), a specific tool to discover specific things rather than an instantaneous indictment. There are myriad things wrong with using them, and if the detective doesn't understand that or worse wants to exploit that, the detective should be regarded no differently than the beat cop shooting their gun into the crowd to scare it off.
https://lawcomic.net/guide/?page_id=5
Similarly: A detective's hunch about whether the person being interrogated committed a crime is a powerful tool. We just don't throw people in prison based on that alone. We're getting to the point that we could train an AI to develop such hunches, and that could be valuable. But we can't just throw people in prison based on that alone. We need to confirm such things with external evidence.
Just like we need to confirm a single-eyewitness recollection or a rough photo, rather than just measure that recollection & numerically characterize that photo without any indication (or more commonly, with a 100% fraudulent indication) of probability of matching.
From the article:
“It is circular and dangerous,” Dr. Wells said. “You’ve got a very powerful tool that, if it searches enough faces, will always yield people who look like the person on the surveillance image.”
Dr. Wells said the technology compounds an existing problem with eyewitnesses. “They assume when you show them a six-pack, the real person is there,” he said.
“It is circular and dangerous,” Dr. Wells said. “You’ve got a very powerful tool that, if it searches enough faces, will always yield people who look like the person on the surveillance image.”
Dr. Wells said the technology compounds an existing problem with eyewitnesses. “They assume when you show them a six-pack, the real person is there,” he said.
Wow this is infuriating. There are so many people in this supply chain that I feel bear moral responsibility for this. From the engineers who have built the ML model for use in this way, to the engineers who designed and built the application to be used in this way, to the people who procured and implemented it, to the public servants who use it on a daily basis when it clearly makes atrocious, avoidable mistakes. To put a woman on bail from a machine learning algorithm output alone is frankly disgusting and reeks of laziness and a lack of care or concern from public servants. I am appalled.
I don't see any problem with the tool itself; the problem is that it's being used incorrectly and with false assumptions.
A facial recognition match should just be the start of one possible line of inquiry, and nothing more.
I think the real issue is that the US justice system rewards and penalizes based on the number of convictions achieved. Low = bad, high = good. But high convictions does not equate to promoting justice or domestic tranquility.
A facial recognition match should just be the start of one possible line of inquiry, and nothing more.
I think the real issue is that the US justice system rewards and penalizes based on the number of convictions achieved. Low = bad, high = good. But high convictions does not equate to promoting justice or domestic tranquility.
Imagine if software engineers became liable for these sorts of errors. Just like how professional engineers are when they put their stamp on a project.
As a software engineer, I think it has to be done. The heres my platform - I cant control who or how folks use it, and have no responsibility of that mentality creates harm… lots of it.
Don't see why not, something like that is the only way (imo) to slow this technological race to the bottom.
The user should have an engineer put a stamp on it if they need a scapegoat for their bad policies. Liability for devs will just entrench Oracle, IBM and whatever.
Freaking Kash Hill. If I was limited to reading 10 columnists forever, she'd be one.
Her Maxmind story is campfire-good https://fusion.net/story/287592/internet-mapping-glitch-kans...
Her Maxmind story is campfire-good https://fusion.net/story/287592/internet-mapping-glitch-kans...
fusion.net doesn't work for me, but I found
https://splinternews.com/how-an-internet-mapping-glitch-turn...
New Orleans rolled out facial recognition. It led to exactly zero arrests.
https://gizmodo.com/facial-recognition-new-orleans-police-no...
https://gizmodo.com/facial-recognition-new-orleans-police-no...
Is that because NOLA police used recognition as part of the investigation toolbox, not as an auto-arrest rubber stamp?
I think that's the key to this and many other stories. Police turn on tool turn off brain. Outsourcing their thinking to a tool about which they don't understand the implications of the resulting data.
Tool says you; arrest.
Tool says you; arrest.
Somewhere in NOPD, “Gotta pump those numbers up. Those are rookie numbers in this racket.”
> got the surveillance video from the BP gas station
It’s obviously not the worst part of this story, but how on earth is anyone supposed to get actual, reliable facial identification from security cameras? Those things have hilariously low resolution on a _good_ day.
It’s obviously not the worst part of this story, but how on earth is anyone supposed to get actual, reliable facial identification from security cameras? Those things have hilariously low resolution on a _good_ day.
How did I know she was non-white before clicking the link?
She wasn't the only one either:
> Ms. Woodruff is the sixth person to report being falsely accused of a crime as a result of facial recognition technology used by police to match an unknown offender’s face to a photo in a database. All six people have been Black;
> Ms. Woodruff is the sixth person to report being falsely accused of a crime as a result of facial recognition technology used by police to match an unknown offender’s face to a photo in a database. All six people have been Black;
> How did I know she was non-white before clicking the link?
FacRec's history precedes it. The darker the skin the higher the false positive rate. https://duckduckgo.com/?hps=1&q=facial+recognition+skin+colo...
Surveillance abettors in general (and LEO specifically) haven't been overly put-off by that feature.
FacRec's history precedes it. The darker the skin the higher the false positive rate. https://duckduckgo.com/?hps=1&q=facial+recognition+skin+colo...
Surveillance abettors in general (and LEO specifically) haven't been overly put-off by that feature.
> by that feature.
I see what you did there. It totally is a feature, not a bug.
I see what you did there. It totally is a feature, not a bug.
To me the bigger issue in this story is that the cops didn't use any common sense.
I don't live in the US, but from abroad I can tell how messed up the police are over there. The number of stories of brutality, deaths and upright bullying of every day citizens...
It's really messed up, perhaps Americans are desensitised, but I can tell you from the other side of the world - it's nowhere like this in other countries, you guys have a BIG problem with how your cops are selected and trained.
I don't live in the US, but from abroad I can tell how messed up the police are over there. The number of stories of brutality, deaths and upright bullying of every day citizens...
It's really messed up, perhaps Americans are desensitised, but I can tell you from the other side of the world - it's nowhere like this in other countries, you guys have a BIG problem with how your cops are selected and trained.
Please don't take HN threads into nationalistic flamewar. I'm sure you didn't intend it, but that's exactly what this leads to. Generic putdowns of other countries always do.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
To me the bigger issue in this story is that the cops didn't use any common sense.
I've read over and over again that intelligence is a disqualifying characteristic for being a LEO. They want people to follow orders and be a good partner (e.g., never go against what your partner says).
My experience in CA since the 80's is that LEOs are very corrupt and really only care about their own. There are exceptions. I live in an unusual city, LEO-wise, but it is totally not the norm.
I've read over and over again that intelligence is a disqualifying characteristic for being a LEO. They want people to follow orders and be a good partner (e.g., never go against what your partner says).
My experience in CA since the 80's is that LEOs are very corrupt and really only care about their own. There are exceptions. I live in an unusual city, LEO-wise, but it is totally not the norm.
This is unfortunately true. Police qualification tests have a maximum score above which you will not be selected (often this is unwritten). They actively select against intelligence above a certain level, probably for good reason: what’s wanted is people who will shut up and take orders.
Do you have a source for that?
https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/st...
This went to court and the man who sued for discrimination lost his case.
> -- A man whose bid to become a police officer was rejected after he scored too high on an intelligence test has lost an appeal in his federal lawsuit against the city.
> The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York upheld a lower court’s decision that the city did not discriminate against Robert Jordan because the same standards were applied to everyone who took the test.
This went to court and the man who sued for discrimination lost his case.
> -- A man whose bid to become a police officer was rejected after he scored too high on an intelligence test has lost an appeal in his federal lawsuit against the city.
> The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York upheld a lower court’s decision that the city did not discriminate against Robert Jordan because the same standards were applied to everyone who took the test.
Wow, just wow.
Mind boggling
The "famous" article for that is from 2000[1].
Smart, well-educated police are how you end up with Frank Serpico[2]. Most police forces don't want men like Serpico on their forces.
[1]: https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/st...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Serpico
Smart, well-educated police are how you end up with Frank Serpico[2]. Most police forces don't want men like Serpico on their forces.
[1]: https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/st...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Serpico
Not a written one, this is coming from personal acquaintances involved in the police recruitment process. It looks like a sibling comment provided a source for a documented policy, which corroborates what I’ve been told: that this is nearly universal, even if it’s only documented in some jurisdictions.
As an American, living abroad was one of the biggest eye opening experiences to seeing how messed up our law enforcement system is here. I don’t think it’s as much desensitization (which is part of it) as portraying law enforcement as “can do no wrong” heroes in our media and culture. It really skews public perception and results in a lot of people turning a blind eye… until they are the ones affected.
As an American who lived abroad, I feel the opposite.
Corruption is incredibly common overseas (yes, Europe too). Privacy laws regarding law enforcement are much worse.
There’s a really good video on YouTube called “Never Talk To Police.” It’s a law professor and police officer explaining to law students why they should instruct their clients not to talk to police.
The police officer compares American and foreign practices, and emphasizes US police use deception, but foreign police use force.
I’m sure bad and good police agencies in America and abroad. The best PD I’ve interacted with is in a mid-sized UK city. The worst I’ve seen is in a major American city.
Corruption is incredibly common overseas (yes, Europe too). Privacy laws regarding law enforcement are much worse.
There’s a really good video on YouTube called “Never Talk To Police.” It’s a law professor and police officer explaining to law students why they should instruct their clients not to talk to police.
The police officer compares American and foreign practices, and emphasizes US police use deception, but foreign police use force.
I’m sure bad and good police agencies in America and abroad. The best PD I’ve interacted with is in a mid-sized UK city. The worst I’ve seen is in a major American city.
> The police officer compares American and foreign practices, and emphasizes US police use deception, but foreign police use force.
Semi automatic deception that ranks the US 30 in term of death by police, in the middle of third world countries, far away from any developed countries
Semi automatic deception that ranks the US 30 in term of death by police, in the middle of third world countries, far away from any developed countries
"American and foreign" - very binary isn't it?
Explicit comparisons between two things usually are.
There are so many “copaganda” TV shows in the US it’s wild. I bet every American could easily name 10 off the top of their head and that wouldn’t even begin to scratch the surface.
> a BIG problem with how your cops are selected and trained.
Police in the US have the least training of all Developed countries on Earth [1].
The results of less training are very clear.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56834733
Police in the US have the least training of all Developed countries on Earth [1].
The results of less training are very clear.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56834733
> I don't live in the US, but from abroad I can tell how messed up the police are over there. The number of stories of brutality, deaths and upright bullying of every day citizens...
Yeah, you might not be getting a complete or accurate picture.
The US is geographically huge and has a large, distributed, heterogeneous population. Be careful making broad generalizations about 330M people in 10s of thousands of cities, in 50 states across 3.5M square miles of land.
Awful stuff happens sometimes. That doesn't mean it's the norm.
Yeah, you might not be getting a complete or accurate picture.
The US is geographically huge and has a large, distributed, heterogeneous population. Be careful making broad generalizations about 330M people in 10s of thousands of cities, in 50 states across 3.5M square miles of land.
Awful stuff happens sometimes. That doesn't mean it's the norm.
The system is extremely corrupt and broken, from the very top (Supreme court, congress, president) all the way to the bottom.
THIS. Hidebound and self-righteous idiots with badges would still be a massive problem, even if the most advanced tech they had was morse-code telegraphs and steel-tipped fountain pens.
> I don't live in the US, but from abroad I can tell how messed up the police are over there.
Translation I get all of my information about American policing through highly politicized and charged news storied that become stories only because they are exceptional and then feel justified passing judgment on an entire country that has 3 times the people and land as my country.
Translation I get all of my information about American policing through highly politicized and charged news storied that become stories only because they are exceptional and then feel justified passing judgment on an entire country that has 3 times the people and land as my country.
Okay. I'm an American citizen living in the States. Our policing systems are incredibly messed up and militarized.
We have the most ethnically diverse population in the world. Blacks commit more than half of all US crime despite being a tenth of the population. We’re a gigantic state with both the least restrictive gun laws and the most permissive immigration laws in the world. No comparable nation not named China drives nearly as much as we do.
To say our policing systems are bad is a smear on the hard-working men and women in those systems. The US simply has challenges that European nations do not have. You can (and maybe should) debate whether or not those challenges should be present in the first place but blaming those challenges on the police is just mean.
To say our policing systems are bad is a smear on the hard-working men and women in those systems. The US simply has challenges that European nations do not have. You can (and maybe should) debate whether or not those challenges should be present in the first place but blaming those challenges on the police is just mean.
> We have the most ethnically diverse population in the world
Umm, no:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/16...
Umm, no:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/16...
Except they also get their information on other countries through highly politicized and charged news stories yet those can't compete with how f'd up America's police stories are. But go ahead say it's the news accounts and not the cops behaviors that are the problem. If only the news wouldn't report on it things would be good.
Translation translation: someone has leveled valid criticism about a nationwide problem in a country that propagandises itself to be the best in the world and I've drank the koolaid so now I need to be super touched about it
Adding personal attack on top of nationalistic flamewar is not cool, and the sort of thing we ban accounts for. Please make your substantive points thoughtfully.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
barbazoo(1)
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/06/technology/facial-recogni...