Does facial recognition have a future?
In January, Robert Julian-Borchak Williams was handcuffed and arrested in front of his family for shoplifting after being identified by facial recognition used by the Detroit Police Department. The system was wrong and he wasn’t a criminal but, because a machine said so, Williams spent 30 hours in jail.
Williams has the distinction of being the first person arrested and jailed after being falsely identified by facial recognition – or, at least, the first person that we the public have been told about. The Detroit police chief said at a meeting following the reports of Williams’ arrest that the system misidentified suspects 96% of the time. Given the wider discussion around reforming policing in the US following the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis officers, it’s no wonder calls for bans of the tech are starting to be heard.
Amazon, Microsoft and IBM soon paused sales of facial-recognition systems to police, although it’s worth noting that there are plenty of specialist companies that still sell to authorities. Politicians are calling for a blanket ban until the technology is better understood and proven safe. “There should probably be some kind of restrictions,” Jim Jordan, a
