St. Louis County abused Amazon facial recognition, suit says. Wrong man went to jail.
A lawsuit alleges that St. Louis County misused Amazon's facial recognition technology, leading to the wrongful jailing of an innocent man. The case adds to a growing record of facial recognition errors resulting in false arrests.
Why this matters: An innocent person went to jail because a government agency fed a face into an algorithm and trusted the result too much. That is not a technical glitch. That is a accountability failure with real consequences for a real person. Facial recognition is wrong more often on darker-skinned faces, and police departments keep using it anyway. When a wrong match costs someone their freedom, someone has to be responsible. Right now, in most places, nobody really is.
Who should care: Privacy officers · Cybersecurity · General readers · Policy
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