The Fatal Flaws of Facial Recognition

Photo by Chris Yang on Unsplash

IN BRIEF: It’s not uncommon for police to tout the importance of new and emerging technologies that supposedly address crime while ignoring the dangerous privacy violations and civil rights incursions these technologies pose.

Facial recognition is no different. It is a technology that’s poised to perpetuate racial biases and discrimination in policing. It’s also inherently flawed. Facial recognition has had difficulty telling Black people apart. Unsurprisingly, its inaccurate readings have resulted in several Black people being wrongfully arrested or incarcerated. Despite that, there has been resistance to prohibiting law enforcement from using it.

WHY ATTENTION’S NEEDED: Some believe that the fix to invasive, dangerous, and sweeping technologies used by law enforcement — like facial recognition — is to simply create more rules, trainings, and transparency standards instead of outlawing the technology.

This ignores one critical issue: History demonstrates that, many times, law enforcement agencies do not follow rules, protocols, or standards. Sometimes, law enforcement agencies don’t even disclose that they used facial recognition when deciding to make an arrest. And, when law enforcement use of facial recognition technology causes harm to people, agencies often face few consequences because they frequently lack robust internal and external accountability systems. However, the risks to the lives and livelihoods of those falsely arrested or otherwise harmed by facial recognition technology are very real. And the onus cannot be on victims to challenge this technology when it was wrongfully used to upend their lives.

LDF AT WORK: LDF has drawn attention to the dangers of facial recognition technology usage and advocated for prohibiting law enforcement’s use of facial recognition technology to ensure the safety of Black communities and safeguard their civil rights.

POINTS OF ADVOCACY: Law enforcement agencies will undoubtedly continue to use or adopt this technology. However, some localities, including Seattle, have banned them from using facial recognition technology. Federal, state, and local legislatures must follow suit and also put measures in place to hold agencies accountable if they ignore or circumvent these prohibitions.