Detroit police chief pushes back against Rashida Tlaib's racist suggestion

[CassTechGrad]

How did a racist idiot like her ever get elected!

George Hunter, The Detroit News 9:20 a.m. ET Oct. 2, 2019
U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib told Detroit police Chief James Craig he should employ only black people on the department’s facial recognition team. “Analysts need to be African Americans, not people that are not,” Tlaib told Craig. “I think non-African Americans think African Americans all look the same.

"This is a double standard," Craig told Mele and Schmitt. "If I had made the exact same comment, they would've been calling for my resignation and she would have been leading that charge. That's a fact."

[renf]

It is difficult to believe that a member of Congress endorsed the stereotype that white people cannot and do not distinguish between people of color. Our nation suffers greatly from the endorsement of racial and other stereotypes. It is discouraging that a member of Congress promotes the use of stereotypes.

[Johnnny5]

It is difficult to believe that a member of Congress endorsed the stereotype that white people cannot and do not distinguish between people of color. Our nation suffers greatly from the endorsement of racial and other stereotypes. It is discouraging that a member of Congress promotes the use of stereotypes.

While I don't agree with Tlaib, and I am surprised that she would suggest something that would be a blatant violation of the Civil Rights Act. It's not exactly an unfounded stereotype [[or racist) to assume that many individuals have difficulty distinguishing differences in facial features between individuals of other races. Below is an article that cites multiple studies that back this up. The differences and difficulties people have mostly appear to stem from the segregation of races.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/neurophilosophy/2011/aug/15/people-other-races-look-alike

[DetBill]

No matter how one feels, I think the major issue here is the fact that she contends and recommends that only one race of people should be employed for a certain type of employment. Im quite sure she would be enraged if that were applied to people of her ethnicity against applying for a job and not given opportunity to apply. That’s not the way our country is supposed to work . She, as a publicly elected official, needs to not only be aware of that, but to enforce it wholeheartedly. People of any race or ethnicity are allowed to be employed at any job, that’s supposed to be guaranteed via the Civil Rights Act. At times I have liked her for some of her stances, but I must admit some of the things she is coming out with seem definitely over the edge lately, I’m disappointed in her to say the least . She needs to be more responsible to all of the constituents, for the greater good.

[iheartthed]

I'm surprised the chief isn't taking her concern more seriously.

Atlanta Asks Google Whether It Targeted Black Homeless People

Atlanta officials are seeking answers from Google after a news report said that company contractors had sought out black homeless people in the city to scan their faces to improve Google’s facial-recognition technology.

The New York Daily News reported on Wednesday that a staffing agency hired by Google had sent its contractors to numerous American cities to target black people for facial scans. One unnamed former worker told the newspaper that in Atlanta, the effort included finding those who were homeless because they were less likely to speak to the media.
On Friday, Nina Hickson, Atlanta’s city attorney, sent a letter to Google asking for an explanation.
“The possibility that members of our most vulnerable populations are being exploited to advance your company’s commercial interest is profoundly alarming for numerous reasons,” she said in a letter to Kent Walker, Google’s legal and policy chief. “If some or all of the reporting was accurate, we would welcome your response as what corrective action has been and will be taken.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/04/technology/google-facial-recognition-atlanta-homeless.html

[Dumpling]

There is a whole subsection of law around medical malpractice.

A meaningful subset of medical malpractice is wrongful diagnosis.

Analogously, if one wishes to use a recognition system that is
essentially one kind of identity diagnosis, one has to confront
the ramifications of that subset of diagnoses which come to
be known as false or wrongful.

There will be an area of law regarding facial false positives.
The City of Detroit administration [[not necessarily the citizens
in Detroit - it actually should be a ballot proposal) appears
to be willing to participate in building this niche. Even though
minority persons may well identify other minority persons
correctly more often it will be meager satisfaction if they
lose a facial false positive lawsuit.

[Zacha341]

Thank goodness she's finally found time to do some work here in her district!

We can work out the details of the effort as we go!

[archfan]

I have no comment on this, other than to say this is a great reply from a public servant:

When asked whether she agreed with Tlaib's comments about whether only black people should work as crime analysts in Detroit, Holt said: "I'm not going to speak to that. I didn't hear it, and it serves no purpose in terms of what we're trying to accomplish as a city and as a nation."

[Richard]

I'm surprised the chief isn't taking her concern more seriously.

Facial recognition has been in use at stadiums sense 9-11,casinos before that,in the early 90s they had it in place in a party spot by me called Ybor city,10 years and they caught 3 people so they canceled it out because of no cost benefit.

The police have portable scanners that they can just drive down the street and scan everybody,they use it at riots and rallies.

China is setting up a system that can track every one of its 1.4 billion citizens.

Bail bondmen devolved a facial recognition program that excesses every camera connected to the internet,including your phone.

The cameras and scanners have been their for years,why would they need to target black homeless in order to develop them when they can just drive down the street and test everybody?

Its a system that scans multiple points in ones face,it does not care what color you are or what race,unless Tlaib is saying all blacks look alike so the system has a hard time identifying?

[DeLemur]

Facial recognition has been in use at stadiums sense 9-11,casinos before that,in the early 90s they had it in place in a party spot by me called Ybor city,10 years and they caught 3 people so they canceled it out because of no cost benefit.

The police have portable scanners that they can just drive down the street and scan everybody,they use it at riots and rallies.

China is setting up a system that can track every one of its 1.4 billion citizens.

Bail bondmen devolved a facial recognition program that excesses every camera connected to the internet,including your phone.

The cameras and scanners have been their for years,why would they need to target black homeless in order to develop them when they can just drive down the street and test everybody?

Its a system that scans multiple points in ones face,it does not care what color you are or what race,unless Tlaib is saying all blacks look alike so the system has a hard time identifying?

Facial recognition software is seriously flawed for African-Americans. It makes plenty of mistakes for folks with dark pigmentation. It is one of the big arguments against using it in Detroit. Oh and the fact that DPD's old policy was that anyone with any possible knowledge of a crime could be under facial recognition - which basically gave DPD full reign of monitoring over everyone.

Happy to see the program is out of the complete control of Chief Craig, who isn't trustworthy and that its into true civilian oversight. All this emphasis on cameras is just taking away from patrols actually fighting crime.

[Zacha341]

^^^ Yes, I agree that it's problematic beyond Tlaib's solution.

I fear too many will be miss-identified with this technology as it stands now.

[LongGone06]

Happy to see the program is out of the complete control of Chief Craig, who isn't trustworthy...

Why do you say that Chief Craig is not trustworthy?

[Richard]

Facial recognition software is seriously flawed for African-Americans. It makes plenty of mistakes for folks with dark pigmentation. It is one of the big arguments against using it in Detroit. Oh and the fact that DPD's old policy was that anyone with any possible knowledge of a crime could be under facial recognition - which basically gave DPD full reign of monitoring over everyone.

Happy to see the program is out of the complete control of Chief Craig, who isn't trustworthy and that its into true civilian oversight. All this emphasis on cameras is just taking away from patrols actually fighting crime.

It seems to be a mixed bag in reliability

Facebook claims 98% reliability

https://fortune.com/2015/06/23/faceb...l-recognition/

The UK police claim it is false 98% of the time.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...nology-failure

Master Card claims 98% reliability

https://www.computerweekly.com/news/...8-success-rate

The reality is we need to pay more attention when we give up freedoms for a false sense of security.


There are 2 universities that have devolved anti facial recognition glasses which is kinda pointless if it does not work anyways.

But it is a 7 billion dollar a year business.

[iheartthed]

Facial recognition has been in use at stadiums sense 9-11,casinos before that,in the early 90s they had it in place in a party spot by me called Ybor city,10 years and they caught 3 people so they canceled it out because of no cost benefit.

The police have portable scanners that they can just drive down the street and scan everybody,they use it at riots and rallies.

China is setting up a system that can track every one of its 1.4 billion citizens.

Bail bondmen devolved a facial recognition program that excesses every camera connected to the internet,including your phone.

The cameras and scanners have been their for years,why would they need to target black homeless in order to develop them when they can just drive down the street and test everybody?

Its a system that scans multiple points in ones face,it does not care what color you are or what race,unless Tlaib is saying all blacks look alike so the system has a hard time identifying?

There are a lot of articles out there about how error prone facial recognition is, and how the error rate increases for darker skinned people. A quick Google search will enlighten you on the issue. Some programs are designed in such a way that they cannot even be calibrated to recognize light skinned and dark skinned people at the same rates. Stupid engineering blunders like that happen when the designers bake their own world view into the product.

An example of this is how women and children were more prone to being killed by airbags in the 1990s, because airbags were mostly designed to protect grown men. So, it's not a deliberately racist thing, but it's just fact that these programs were not written with an emphasis on darker skinned people.

[Richard]

^ I was under the impression that my previous post was enlightening as to for every one link that says it is effective there is another that says it is not.

Irregardless and considering Tlaib is playing in the big leagues now,would it not be more constructive to introduce bills or ways of curbing the use of FR verses or is it just an local issue?

She is kinda in a position to bring it into the National arena where it would get plenty of attention and it would not appear to be on a pandering level.

[iheartthed]

^ I was under the impression that my previous post was enlightening as to for every one link that says it is effective there is another that says it is not.

Irregardless and considering Tlaib is playing in the big leagues now,would it not be more constructive to introduce bills or ways of curbing the use of FR verses or is it just an local issue?

She is kinda in a position to bring it into the National arena where it would get plenty of attention and it would not appear to be on a pandering level.

Sorry, I missed that before I responded.

[Jimaz]

Note that this facial recognition issue emerges here while Thousands on streets of Hong Kong rage against mask ban.

I'm starting to see ads pop up hawking goofy looking [[cartoon skeleton face chomping on a cigar) face masks and fashions with monkish-looking hoods. Maybe it's just for Halloween.

Or is this going to be the new thing now? Facial recognition software versus attempts to thwart it with diguise?

What interesting times in which we live.

[Richard]

Get three friends to chip in and beat it with this for $1

https://www.wholesalepartysupplies.c...%20and%20Gifts

Somebody into nano technology can make a scrambler chip that you can implant under your forehead skin that will disrupt the FR.

We have seen all of this stuff in the Syfy movies of the past.

[Honky Tonk]

Thank goodness she's finally found time to do some work here in her district!

Yes, Now she can get on with the business of creating a Palestinian State in the USA.

[CassTechGrad]

I heard a rumor that Tlaib brought a copy of her office map with her as a gift to the city. As for that, my response would be to repeat the insightful words that Commissioner Annie Holt’s said: "I'm not going to speak to that. I didn't hear it, and it serves no purpose in terms of what we're trying to accomplish as a city and as a nation.

"

[DeLemur]

Why do you say that Chief Craig is not trustworthy?

Comparing Craig's DPD describe their past use and future use of facial recognition [[this is only for hard core murders and rapists) with the language of the policy which included anyone with any knowledge of a crime, showed that honesty wasn't something Craig's department was interested in. What they were saying and what was the policy was completely incorrect and a lie.

Then look at the crime reporting and 911 calls. The three part series from Channel 7 showed another enormous gulf between what Craig's DPD is saying and what's really happening on 911 response times. https://www.wxyz.com/news/local-news...response-times

These are huge matters, that weren't just 'put in a nice light.' They were completely altered. That's why I don't trust Craig. Nor does his demeanor exude trustworthiness.

[rb336]

MIT's Media Labs conducted an in-depth study of facial recognition technology and found that there is a severe drop off in accuracy with darker skin tones. That is a fact. It is also a fact - supported by numerous studies - that people of different races have a more difficult time differentiating photographs of faces from other races.

There is not one thing Tlaib said that was not backed up by facts. It was not in any way racist.

[bartocktoo]

MIT's Media Labs conducted an in-depth study of facial recognition technology and found that there is a severe drop off in accuracy with darker skin tones. That is a fact. It is also a fact - supported by numerous studies - that people of different races have a more difficult time differentiating photographs of faces from other races.

There is not one thing Tlaib said that was not backed up by facts. It was not in any way racist.

I'm not disagreeing with the facts on facial recognition it's completely problematic and unreliable. But it was 100% racist what she said. I HATE HATE HATE Trump but imagine if he had said that. What would you say?

[poobert]

She's making a career and name for herself by being incendiary. She plays right into Trump and the Republicans' hands, too. Not without reason. I'm a liberal and she scares the shit out of me.

[K-slice]

Until facial recognition systems become fully autonomous [[because all humans have gone blind I guess?) there is no reason to stop using it.

It's not like the system makes an identification and the police are dispatched immediately and jail time doled out. I'm not in law enforcement, but I find it hard to believe than when the system does identify someone there is no human taking a look to confirm the systems work. And assuming such is the case, the whole point of these systems not being fully reliable is moot.