Misidentification Crisis
Technology may not be as perfected as many think.
As laughter fills the atmosphere and a family is enjoying each other’s company, suddenly the police burst through the door and handcuffs are put on their father. The police are accusing him of stealing, that he is a criminal. Commotion and confusion occupy the then joyous time, and now questions are forming. “Is their father a thief?” It is eventually concluded that a horrible misunderstanding occurred.
After a Michigan father was wrongly identified by facial recognition surveillance footage, to what extent should people rely on technology, especially when handling criminal cases? What are the potential risks? People tend to think that technology is already extremely advanced and that mistakes rarely occur. However, how severe does a mistake have to be for change to happen?
As a result of the Detroit Police Department’s mistake, Robert Williams was arrested in front of his family and detained by the police for approximately 30 hours. With this concern, Williams claims that this experience will create lasting trauma for his daughters. Notably, during his detainment, detectives showed him photos of the suspected shoplifter, who showed no similarity with himself. Due to this, Williams’ charges were dropped because of the lack of evidence.
“I held that piece of paper up to my face and said, ‘I hope you don’t think all Black people look alike’,” Williams said.
Experts acknowledge that facial recognition technology is not at all perfected, yet also implies how the system inadvertently targets people of color.
“There are many unknowns, but we can be certain of one thing: Most, if not all facial recognition systems are less accurate for people of color and women,” United States Representative Sheila Jackson Lee said.
“For the most part, we can be confident that the darker your skin tone, the higher the error rate,” Lee added.
Additionally, a 2019 federal government study conducted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology discovered that Asian and African Americans were 100 times more likely to be misidentified than White people.
“One of the mistakes they’ll make is a false negative mistake, where it doesn’t associate you as you two photos of you. And it doesn’t, it doesn’t put them together,” National Institute of Standards and Technology scientist Patrick Grother said.
Nevertheless, Grother sent the results of the study directly to developers in hopes of refining the algorithms used to identify individuals.
“We continue to track the technology and whether it’s improving with respect to accuracy and with respect to these demographic effects,” Grother added.
This case of facial recognition usage raises concerns about how imprecise technological databases can be, especially regarding people of darker skin tones. William’s case was the first documented case of an individual being wrongfully detained as a result of facial recognition technology. If this is the first documented case, how many more occurred before this one? This leaves the possibility that people deemed to be criminals are innocent, which creates another issue.
Approximately 4-6 percent of United States incarcerated people are innocent. Amongst the imprisoned population, up to 40 percent are African Americans. The history of American racial injustices, which emphasized the marginalization of people of color has unfolded “into the widespread presumption that people of color are suspicious, dangerous, and criminal—that young Black men are to be feared, monitored, and even hunted,” executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative Bryan Stevenson said.
After this unfortunate incident occurred, Williams testified before the California legislature to express how his case was flawed.
“In my case, Detroit police were supposed to treat face recognition matches as an investigative lead, not as the only proof they need to charge someone with a crime,” Williams wrote in a letter to the California assembly’s public safety committee.
“They should have collected corroborating evidence such as an eyewitness identification, cell phone location data or a fingerprint,” Williams added. “They had none of that – just an out-of-focus image of a large Black man in a baseball cap that a faulty algorithm had determined was me.”
This case exhibits how the United States will continue to have a history of racial injustices if no technological improvements are made when attempting to solve crimes. If additional research and effort are being put into systems such as the facial recognition system and more reliable ways to properly identify criminals, demographic issues can potentially be eased to a certain extent. Small changes are a step forward towards a better future.
