research worker at the Georgetown Center of Privacy and Technology have filed suit of clothes against the NYPD for more detail on the department ’s extremely closelipped look recognition program .
In 2016 , the researchers sent Freedom of Information Act asking to the NYPD as they train to releasethe Perpetual Lineup , a watershed report by the university on law enforcement and confront identification technologies . But since 2016 , the NYPD has alternately lay claim it either could n’t find any relevant record or that the records it did find were too sensitive to be released .
“ The technology is not just a counterterrorism measuring rod , ” Clare Garvie , one of the Georgetown researchers action for more information , told Gizmodo . Garvie co - authored “ The Perpetual Lineup ” and the 2017 follow - up rivet on face acknowledgement in airport .
“ The NYPD has designate that they expend it in routine investigation , including for misdemeanor , ” she pronounce . “ It ’s something the world deserves to know about , particularly the controls that are in place against abuse [ and ] how they ’re assure to debar invasions of privacy and impacts on polite rightfulness . ”
The about 500 pages of document the NYPD handed over to researchers were blanket in redactions , revealing almost nothing about the curriculum . Sentences explaining the orbit of what cheek recognition system of rules exist , its intend uses , and so on , are merely redacted into a blank void , leaving the Georgetown investigator with little more than what they initiate with . Most crucially , Garvie wants to know what checks are in place to protect people .
“ They ’ve had at least five misidentifications , ” Garvie say . “ And we wanted more information about that . What happened with these individuals ? How far do the investigations go ? And what checks are in place to quash misidentifications to void charge , arresting , prosecute an devoid individual ? ”
Here ’s what the researchers have been capable to piece together about the NYPD ’s “ Forensic Imaging System . ” It ’s seemingly a biometric database made up of mugshots from arrests and fleur-de-lis and thumbprint data point . Based on the few record the NYPD has released , it ’s believed to connect biometric datum with arrest data point , so when someone is pick up , their face , eyes , and thumbprints would be scanned and supply to a searchable database with information like if they ’d been arrested before , their belt sheet , etc .
The documents reference training manuals and audited account , but the NYPD has so far refused to release them to Georgetown . Interestingly , the NYPD has also claimed it had no data on education and audited account program that agency representatives made public references to in conversation about crime prevention and counterterrorism .
“ It may be a display case where the correct bridge player is not of necessity talking to the left , ” Glare suppose , “ [ or ] they do n’t have a coordinated strategy around what gets expose and what does . ”
Georgetown researchers have return court dates in both April and May to petition a judge to hale the NYPD to pass on over legible variation of the documents . While Garvie hopes this will answer necessary questions about the scale of the NYPD ’s programme , question remain about the underlying algorithm , including how it ’s been designed and whether there are racial disparities in truth , a key vexation raised in The Perpetual Lineup write up .
“ It really comes down to how robust the algorithm is and whether [ it ’s ] been create in such a path to extenuate these truth concerns , ” said Garvie . “ regrettably , because these algorithmic rule are all proprietary , we really have no transparency into what the companies themselves are doing to mitigate these peril . ”
[ NY Daily News ]
AI / EthicsFace RecognitionNYPD
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