4 ms·

Yep same here. As a white dude with dense longish hair who travels a lot for work I've noticed that if I have my hair in a ponytail about 1 in 3 times that I go

Yep same here. As a white dude with dense longish hair who travels a lot for work I've noticed that if I have my hair in a ponytail about 1 in 3 times that I go through the body scanner they are going to pat down the back of my head to check my ponytail. I don't agree with your last point though. The discriminating factor is that the machine screening is designed based on the average white male and female appearance. And that means that anyone outside that built in assumption, whether its a white dude with a thick ponytail, or a black woman with a Afro gets extra screening. What the article is trying to highlight is that when we design such systems we shouldn't just be designing them against the average because that causes the system to discriminate against anyone outside that average.

ralusek 8y ago
The onus is on you if you make that declaration. You don't know that the reason the machine triggers more frequently in "black hair" is because of improper testing, you're just asserting that. There are such things as objective differences that have objective implications.
Fjolsvith 8y ago
I am reminded of the issues the Air Force had due to cockpits being designed for the average pilot size. They did a study and found that the majority of pilots were not near the average size and had difficulty reaching for switches and pedals and such. [1] 1. https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/01/16/when-us-air-force-discovered-the-flaw-of-averages.html https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/01/16/when-us-air-...