Black Lives Matter protester ID'd from Twitter photo via facial-recog system secretly used by US law enforcement
- Reference: 1604509213
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/11/04/black_lives_matter_protester_idd/
- Source link:
The software is currently employed by 14 local and federal agencies in the US and was revealed in court documents [1]reviewed by The Washington Post . Reports said that the NCRFRILS - apparently a pilot program of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments - has run 12,000 searches as of last year, and attempts to match faces against a database of 1.4 million people.
In June, the Trump administration was criticised for using overly aggressive tactics to dispel a group of protesters rallying against the death of George Floyd while the President posed for a photo op. Police and National Guard fired gas canisters and grenades with rubber bullets to clear the way as Trump crossed Lafayette Square, a park near the White House in Washington DC.
One of the protesters alleged to have attacked more than one police officer, supposedly punching one and grabbing another, was singled out by the facial-recognition system. According to charging documents, seen by the paper, a police officer, who recognised the protester's face in a photograph on Twitter, downloaded the image and gave it to the Maryland-National Capital Park Police to identify using NCRFRILS.
According to court documents filed in Washington, it returned a match for a man named Michael Joseph Peterson Jr, who was then later arrested. Law enforcement officials believe the software has matched Peterson correctly because a backpack containing his ID was found where the protests took place.
Facial-recognition algos vary wildly, US Congress told, as politicians try to come up with new laws on advanced tech [2]READ MORE
The use of NCRFRILS by the police has never been publicly revealed before the court case. A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG), a nonprofit that led the the facial-recognition software's pilot, told the Post that's because it is still testing its capabilities.
The use of facial-recognition tech in criminal investigations isn't new. Other police forces around the US have employed similar software. But it hasn't always gone to plan; it led to [3]two incorrect arrests in Detroit .
Facial-recognition algorithms are controversial. Studies have repeatedly [4]shown that they tend to struggle with correctly identifying women and people of colour. Experts have called for a moratorium on the technology, and cities have placed stricter restrictions on how local governments and law enforcement can use the technology.
Companies like Amazon, IBM, and Microsoft [5]announced a temporary pause on selling its facial-recognition software earlier this year. ®
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[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/facial-recognition-protests-lafayette-square/2020/11/02/64b03286-ec86-11ea-b4bc-3a2098fc73d4_story.html
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2020/01/16/facial_recognition_congress/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/13/in_brief_ai/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2018/02/13/facial_recognition_software_is_better_at_white_men_than_black_women/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2020/06/12/microsoft_facial_recognition/
[6] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Not so bold prediction
We'll never know because for "security reasons" they'll never tell us.
NOFRILLS
> the National Capital Region Facial Recognition Investigative Leads System (NCRFRILS).
They missed their chance to be the National Online Facial Recognition Investigative Leads Legal System. Then they'd show us how legal they are. And how frugal.
One thing that I never liked
Is the Anglo-Saxon press' habit of naming mere suspects.
Does it really matter whether the person they caught is named Michael Joseph Peterson Jr or Joe Bloggs the 23rd? Not to most of us, I'd like to think, but it does to the individual concerned.
Haven't we learnt anything from the Gatwick drones incident last (?) year? Two innocent people had their homes vandalised, amongst other things, by mindless vigilantes. Something which could have been avoided had the press refrained from publishing their names and addresses.
I am sorry but I much prefer the German approach of divulging only vague descriptions ("a young man") or at most first name and initials ("Christopher S.")
Re: One thing that I never liked
The thing is that the press takes a very definitive stance. It's not some random bloke in an altercation with the police, or somebody joyriding a drone. No, it's a matter of Great Importance and the fate of the continuation of society rests upon it. The correct response is therefore to get angry . And you can't get properly angry if you don't have somebody to get angry at.
That the named and shamed target may well be an innocent person is (mumble) (mumble) lessons will be learned (mumble) our sources indicated (mumble).
Re: One thing that I never liked
An argument for naming people arrested is to prevent secret arrests, prevent people from 'disappearing' and provide a degree of transparency within the justice system.
I would concur that the press reporting of arrests could improve, as the arrestee could for instance be named by the courts but not published by the media. I'm not sure where the right balance is.
I guess it comes down to where they obtained their database of 1.4m people to match him against? It is of mug shot photos taken by the police from previous arrests or have they used driving license, passport photos, or even scraping them from social media etc?