A big biometric security company in the UK, Facewatch, is in hot water after their facial recognition system caused a major snafu - the system wrongly identified a 19-year-old girl as a shoplifter.

    • erwan@lemmy.ml
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      7 months ago

      If she’s been flagged as shoplifter she’s probably black!

      • feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Why, because all shoplifters are black? I don’t understand. She’s being mistaken for another person, a real person on the system.

        I used to know a smackhead that would steal things to order, I wonder if he’s still alive and whether he’s on this database. Never bought anything off him but I did buy him a drink occasionally. He’d had a bit of a difficult childhood.

        • Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip
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          7 months ago

          i think its more that all facial recognition systems have a harder time picking up faces with darker complexion (same idea why phone cameras are bad at it for example). this failure leads to a bunch of false flags. its hilariously evident when you see police jurisdictions using it and aresting innocent people.

          not saying the womans of colored background, but would explain why it might be triggering.

        • erwan@lemmy.ml
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          7 months ago

          Because the algorithm trying to identify shoplifters is probably trained on biased dataset

          • feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            That’s not how it works! It has mistakenly identified her as a specific individual who was already convicted of theft.

      • Konala Koala@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Congratulations, you just identified yourself as a racist and need to understand you can’t just judge someone without first getting to know them.