7 ms·

The problem is that innocent people could go to jail because they fall into that 81% of incorrect matches. The justice system, at least in the USA, has a presum

The problem is that innocent people could go to jail because they fall into that 81% of incorrect matches. The justice system, at least in the USA, has a presumption of innocence. The idea being that when there isn't enough evidence, it would be better to let a criminal go free than send an innocent person to jail. I wouldn't be surprised if these systems are used specifically in cases with weak evidence. If you had phone records or other hard evidence, you wouldn't need to rely on face matching. So the faulty system ends up used in the exact cases where it can do the most damage to innocent people.

macspoofing 7y ago
Nobody will go to prison because of a false positive facial detection.
- isostatic 7y ago
  Nobody will go to prison because of a false positive DNA identification
  - bradknowles 7y ago
    Yes they will. They already have.
    - isostatic 7y ago
      sorry, my sarcasm flag must have been hidden Here's one example: https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/forensic-procedures-criticised-as-man-wrongly-799500 https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manches... "Mr Scott, from Truro in Cornwall, spend nearly three months on remand in Strangeways after being charged with a single count of rape. He strongly protested his innocence - and told detectives in interviews that he had never been to Manchester. The Crown Prosecution Service formerly dropped the case during a hearing at Manchester Crown Court after the private firm confirmed the DNA blunder. " Despite warnings of DNA contamination at the laboratory less than two week earlier, Adam Scott was arrested and held in custody – even though he had been hundreds of miles from the scene of the crime. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/rape-accused-adam-scott-was-victim-of-forensics-error-regulator-finds-8193163.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/rape-accused-ada...
  - macspoofing 7y ago
    OF COURSE there will be erroneous convictions. There would be erroneous convictions even if a crime was performed right inside the courtroom, in front of a judge and jury and CCV camera. I suppose using colloquial language by using universal phrases for the sake of clarity is a 'no-no' because some pedant will call you out on it. How about this: "Convictions due to facial recognition false positives are low probability outliers to the extent that they will not impact the civil rights of citizenry".. Is that better? Does that improve conversation? Should we not provide a modicum of charity in interpreting the arguments of others? BTW, you realize you undermined your point as well? DNA is an incredible forensic tool, that outweighs any outliers. If you're claiming facial recognition is or is going to be like DNA identification, you lost your argument.
    - isostatic 7y ago
      DNA is a problem because it's presented as proof to a jury, who convict. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/a-reasonable-doubt/480747/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/a-reaso... From the beginning, Sutton and Adams denied any involvement. They both had alibis, and neither of them matched the profile from the victim’s original account: She’d described her assailants as short and skinny. Adams was 5 foot 11 and 180 pounds. Sutton was three inches taller and 25 pounds heavier, the captain of his high-school football team. The DNA evidence was harder to refute. Having seen enough prime-time TV to believe that a DNA test would vindicate them, Sutton and Adams had agreed, while in custody, to provide the police with blood samples Reality is that DNA evidence overrides actual evidence time and time again, and people are wrongfully sent to jail, have their lives ruined, and even die, because of it. The same thing will happen with facial recognition, gait, etc.
ggreer 7y ago
The system is used to find possible suspects. If you’re flagged, then maybe the police stop and question you or look for other evidence. This system performs much better than existing tools like drug dogs.
- mnm1 7y ago
  The system performs much better than the existing tool of closing ones eyes and randomly picking a picture with your finger too that police have been using since the dawn of their existence. Doesn't mean it performs well because it outperforms a system that never worked to begin with like that or like drug dogs. I'm sure soon it'll be treated like it's 100% accurate just like the dogs despite its abysmal success rate. But I'm sure that's fine. So what if 81% of the suspects it points out are innocent and get harassed by police? If you live in the US, that's just as likely to be a feature, not a bug.
  - jimclegg 7y ago
    What percentage of police interactions result in an unarmed innocent person being shot? I guess we subject the crowd of innocent false-positives to that statistic unecessarily.
    - mnm1 7y ago
      Not really sure how this pertains to my comment or what it means. Can you explain?
jdietrich 7y ago
At least in countries with a functioning criminal justice system, the verdict of a facial recognition algorithm is never going to stand up in court - the defence will demand the raw footage and put it to the jury. This technology is primarily intended for identifying suspects; an 81% false positive rate is remarkably good and extremely useful if you're scanning a train station for a terrorism suspect or a public street for a wanted fugitive. In this application, a relatively high false-positive rate is entirely tolerable (from the perspective of the justice system, at least) because checking the identity of five people to apprehend one serious criminal is a complete no-brainer.
gwern 7y ago
> The problem is that innocent people could go to jail because they fall into that 81% of incorrect matches. No. This is a fully-general counterargument. You could say this of everything: 'innocent people could go to jail because of X!' This is true and irrelevant, because it is true of both good things and bad things, and not even wrong. It is sheer concern-trolling. The question is whether X works well enough. Nothing in OP or your comment remotely establishes whether it does or does not. Citing '81%' is merely throwing out scientific-sounding rhetoric. (It has numbers and it looks big, therefore it must be bad. It would be the same if it was 98.1% or 81% or 8.1%.) So again: is 19% not enough? What is enough? Bueller? Bueller?
- throwaway100773 7y ago
  I’ll take your condescending bait. When it’s 100% it will be good enough. Until then, it’s not.
  - Kadin 7y ago
    That's impossible; no system -- machine or human -- is going to be 100% accurate. People looking at photos and at a lineup aren't even 100% accurate, if the people are similar-enough looking.
xmichael999 7y ago
I assume - I don't know, but my guess is the 81% are simply quickly stopped asked to prove their identification. Once they show their drivers license or any other basic form of ID that proves they are not the suspect they are free to go. I highly highly doubt they are detained, frisked, or even slight questioned beyond being asked to proof who they are. To me, that seems reasonable. In fact I've been randomly asked to show my ID in various countries - cop simply stopped me and asked me to show my identification.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  There's no ID requirement in the UK[1]. Driving licence forms a de facto ID for those who have one, but you don't even need to carry it when driving, let alone when walking! So potentially gets far more involved, and yet another small chip is taken from those Peelian principles (Policing by consent by citizens in uniform). [1] There's several voluntary ID schemes for younger folks to prove they're old enough to be in a bar, buy alcohol or cigarettes etc.
  - stordoff 7y ago
    To that point, I routinely travel to London without ID (nearest ID would be at home two hours away). Last time I went there, I just had cash, Oyster card probably not in my name (I borrow one from family if I can't find me mine), and my phone. Getting stopped and asked for ID could be a problem, and I don't feel like I should have to carry any.
  - xmichael999 7y ago
    I was no aware the UK does not require that you carry ID. I'm not sure how I feel about that law, in my experience most of the world requires you to carry ID. I don't see it at all unreasonable that an adult be required to carry ID at all times. I am Canadian by birth and Canada has the same policy but in practice it is best to carry your ID. I've live around the world and everywhere that I know of outside of europe and the english speaking world requires you to carry some form of government issued ID.
    - 7y ago

macspoofing 7y ago

Nobody will go to prison because of a false positive facial detection.

isostatic 7y ago
Nobody will go to prison because of a false positive DNA identification
- bradknowles 7y ago
  Yes they will. They already have.
  - isostatic 7y ago
    sorry, my sarcasm flag must have been hidden Here's one example: https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/forensic-procedures-criticised-as-man-wrongly-799500 https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manches... "Mr Scott, from Truro in Cornwall, spend nearly three months on remand in Strangeways after being charged with a single count of rape. He strongly protested his innocence - and told detectives in interviews that he had never been to Manchester. The Crown Prosecution Service formerly dropped the case during a hearing at Manchester Crown Court after the private firm confirmed the DNA blunder. " Despite warnings of DNA contamination at the laboratory less than two week earlier, Adam Scott was arrested and held in custody – even though he had been hundreds of miles from the scene of the crime. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/rape-accused-adam-scott-was-victim-of-forensics-error-regulator-finds-8193163.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/rape-accused-ada...
- macspoofing 7y ago
  OF COURSE there will be erroneous convictions. There would be erroneous convictions even if a crime was performed right inside the courtroom, in front of a judge and jury and CCV camera. I suppose using colloquial language by using universal phrases for the sake of clarity is a 'no-no' because some pedant will call you out on it. How about this: "Convictions due to facial recognition false positives are low probability outliers to the extent that they will not impact the civil rights of citizenry".. Is that better? Does that improve conversation? Should we not provide a modicum of charity in interpreting the arguments of others? BTW, you realize you undermined your point as well? DNA is an incredible forensic tool, that outweighs any outliers. If you're claiming facial recognition is or is going to be like DNA identification, you lost your argument.
  - isostatic 7y ago
    DNA is a problem because it's presented as proof to a jury, who convict. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/a-reasonable-doubt/480747/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/a-reaso... From the beginning, Sutton and Adams denied any involvement. They both had alibis, and neither of them matched the profile from the victim’s original account: She’d described her assailants as short and skinny. Adams was 5 foot 11 and 180 pounds. Sutton was three inches taller and 25 pounds heavier, the captain of his high-school football team. The DNA evidence was harder to refute. Having seen enough prime-time TV to believe that a DNA test would vindicate them, Sutton and Adams had agreed, while in custody, to provide the police with blood samples Reality is that DNA evidence overrides actual evidence time and time again, and people are wrongfully sent to jail, have their lives ruined, and even die, because of it. The same thing will happen with facial recognition, gait, etc.

ggreer 7y ago

The system is used to find possible suspects. If you’re flagged, then maybe the police stop and question you or look for other evidence. This system performs much better than existing tools like drug dogs.

mnm1 7y ago
The system performs much better than the existing tool of closing ones eyes and randomly picking a picture with your finger too that police have been using since the dawn of their existence. Doesn't mean it performs well because it outperforms a system that never worked to begin with like that or like drug dogs. I'm sure soon it'll be treated like it's 100% accurate just like the dogs despite its abysmal success rate. But I'm sure that's fine. So what if 81% of the suspects it points out are innocent and get harassed by police? If you live in the US, that's just as likely to be a feature, not a bug.
- jimclegg 7y ago
  What percentage of police interactions result in an unarmed innocent person being shot? I guess we subject the crowd of innocent false-positives to that statistic unecessarily.
  - mnm1 7y ago
    Not really sure how this pertains to my comment or what it means. Can you explain?

jdietrich 7y ago

At least in countries with a functioning criminal justice system, the verdict of a facial recognition algorithm is never going to stand up in court - the defence will demand the raw footage and put it to the jury. This technology is primarily intended for identifying suspects; an 81% false positive rate is remarkably good and extremely useful if you're scanning a train station for a terrorism suspect or a public street for a wanted fugitive. In this application, a relatively high false-positive rate is entirely tolerable (from the perspective of the justice system, at least) because checking the identity of five people to apprehend one serious criminal is a complete no-brainer.

gwern 7y ago

> The problem is that innocent people could go to jail because they fall into that 81% of incorrect matches. No. This is a fully-general counterargument. You could say this of everything: 'innocent people could go to jail because of X!' This is true and irrelevant, because it is true of both good things and bad things, and not even wrong. It is sheer concern-trolling. The question is whether X works well enough. Nothing in OP or your comment remotely establishes whether it does or does not. Citing '81%' is merely throwing out scientific-sounding rhetoric. (It has numbers and it looks big, therefore it must be bad. It would be the same if it was 98.1% or 81% or 8.1%.) So again: is 19% not enough? What is enough? Bueller? Bueller?

throwaway100773 7y ago
I’ll take your condescending bait. When it’s 100% it will be good enough. Until then, it’s not.
- Kadin 7y ago
  That's impossible; no system -- machine or human -- is going to be 100% accurate. People looking at photos and at a lineup aren't even 100% accurate, if the people are similar-enough looking.

xmichael999 7y ago

I assume - I don't know, but my guess is the 81% are simply quickly stopped asked to prove their identification. Once they show their drivers license or any other basic form of ID that proves they are not the suspect they are free to go. I highly highly doubt they are detained, frisked, or even slight questioned beyond being asked to proof who they are. To me, that seems reasonable. In fact I've been randomly asked to show my ID in various countries - cop simply stopped me and asked me to show my identification.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago
There's no ID requirement in the UK[1]. Driving licence forms a de facto ID for those who have one, but you don't even need to carry it when driving, let alone when walking! So potentially gets far more involved, and yet another small chip is taken from those Peelian principles (Policing by consent by citizens in uniform). [1] There's several voluntary ID schemes for younger folks to prove they're old enough to be in a bar, buy alcohol or cigarettes etc.
- stordoff 7y ago
  To that point, I routinely travel to London without ID (nearest ID would be at home two hours away). Last time I went there, I just had cash, Oyster card probably not in my name (I borrow one from family if I can't find me mine), and my phone. Getting stopped and asked for ID could be a problem, and I don't feel like I should have to carry any.
- xmichael999 7y ago
  I was no aware the UK does not require that you carry ID. I'm not sure how I feel about that law, in my experience most of the world requires you to carry ID. I don't see it at all unreasonable that an adult be required to carry ID at all times. I am Canadian by birth and Canada has the same policy but in practice it is best to carry your ID. I've live around the world and everywhere that I know of outside of europe and the english speaking world requires you to carry some form of government issued ID.
  - 7y ago