3 ms·

I read it. The article gives a perfect description of how it happened. The software picked her because she looked like the criminal, and then they put her in t

I read it. The article gives a perfect description of how it happened. The software picked her because she looked like the criminal, and then they put her in the lineup. They wouldn’t have had a photo lineup without the software. That’s the whole point. They use the fig leaf of the victim ID, to cover the fact that it’s just facial recognition at the core. The article points out how likely somebody is to mis-ID somebody who the computer has already found is a likely match. Sure, blame the police. But for what? For using facial recognition to ID and arrest people!

MostlyStable 3y ago
This is actually a really good point. My understanding of traditional line ups (do not take my word for this, at all) is that cops put someone(s) in the lineup because they have reason to believe that person is a suspect for some reason, and then then the victim is supposed to pick them out from among other random people. If the entire lineup is selected to be people who "look like the suspect", and, in fact, that's why every one of them is there, then the victim picking them seems to be A) much sketchier and B) much less valuable. The proper way to use this tool seems to be 1. Find all the people who look similar to the low quality pic we have of the suspect. 2. Investigate those people to see if they could have done it. 3. Arrest someone who you hopefully now have additional evidence against besides just "they look like a grainy photo of the suspect" Just throwing a bunch of people who look like the suspect at the victim and just arresting whoever the victim picks seems completely insane. But also, like it doesn't have too much to do with "Facial recognition" broadly speaking and more to do with completely idiotic investigative practices.
- jtbayly 3y ago
  I assumed only one of the photos looked like the perp, which changes it quite a bit. Makes it even worse. How is the person supposed to not pick the facial recognized one at that point? At least if all 6 look like the perp, he might have doubt that he can properly ID them.

MostlyStable 3y ago

This is actually a really good point. My understanding of traditional line ups (do not take my word for this, at all) is that cops put someone(s) in the lineup because they have reason to believe that person is a suspect for some reason, and then then the victim is supposed to pick them out from among other random people. If the entire lineup is selected to be people who "look like the suspect", and, in fact, that's why every one of them is there, then the victim picking them seems to be A) much sketchier and B) much less valuable. The proper way to use this tool seems to be 1. Find all the people who look similar to the low quality pic we have of the suspect. 2. Investigate those people to see if they could have done it. 3. Arrest someone who you hopefully now have additional evidence against besides just "they look like a grainy photo of the suspect" Just throwing a bunch of people who look like the suspect at the victim and just arresting whoever the victim picks seems completely insane. But also, like it doesn't have too much to do with "Facial recognition" broadly speaking and more to do with completely idiotic investigative practices.

jtbayly 3y ago
I assumed only one of the photos looked like the perp, which changes it quite a bit. Makes it even worse. How is the person supposed to not pick the facial recognized one at that point? At least if all 6 look like the perp, he might have doubt that he can properly ID them.