America's top maker of cop body cameras says facial-recog AI isn't safe America's largest manufacturer of body cameras – and the biggest supplier to police forces across the United States – says today's facial recognition technology is not safe for making serious decisions. Speaking during its second-quarter earnings call with investors this week, the CEO of Axon, Rick Smith, answered a question …
Firms making body cams are showing restraint while police forces aren't. What could possibly go wrong? ... We all know where this is going. US cops already routinely shoot innocent people for no reason. Can't wait for the clusterfuck excuse of: 'The AI told me to do it'!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Justine_Damond#Aftermath
Facial recognition and surveillance videos are useful not so much to positively identify the someone but eliminate people and provide time lines. If a crime occurred at a known time and you resemble the perpetrator caught on video you might want check how solid your alibi is if the flatfeet come knocking. The real problem is when the technology is pushed to beyond its limits by the ignorant and thus misused.
A Taser device is perfectly safe, right until it destabilizies your cardiac conduction system and kills you. When your family objects, you get litigated into homelessness. Welcome to US justice.
You'd rather they used the traditional lead bullet approach to law enforcement? I wouldn't.
I'd accept that tasers are merely "less lethal" rather than "non-lethal", but if being taken down by a cop I'd choose to be tasered rather than pumped full of lead. I can't quickly find a good reference for the lethality of tasers, but subjectively it looks to be in the order of 1 per 1,000 uses. I'll wager that is a whole lot better than firearms, and probably not much worse than pepper spray's unintended lethality.
If anyone can come up with a truly non-lethal device that can incapacitate, I think you'll find the cops would happily use it - if only to avoid the bad publicity and paperwork of killing suspects.
@Ledswinger
Actual use of tasers is 99+% *NOT* as a replacement for gun fire. So the comparison of tasers to guns is nearly 100% specious.
Actual taser use is to impose (extreme) pain compliance, either from a "safe" distance, or to impose some extrajudicial light torture up close.
The overwhelming non-applicability of the gun lethality comparison is the very first tidbit that needs to be hoisted aboard.
Make it a condition that before facial recognition systems are used against ordinary citizens, a facial recognition system is put in place to recognise MPs, once a month for a trial period of 1 year. If the system recognises the MP correctly, then the MP will get paid for that month and reimbursed any expenses and any other money that is due for that month. Alternatively, impose the same trial on the Top Civil Servants
"If the system recognises the MP correctly, then the MP will get paid for that month"
That's testing the wrong thing, though. False positives are a more problematic error than false negatives, and that's where facial recognition tends to do the worst. So the test shouldn't be if the MP is correctly recognized, it should be that it didn't incorrectly identify anyone else as that MP.
"Cops want this tech cool give it to them but. When it fucks up the cops have strict liability. The police and their superior are finally liable . This can not be discharged. Cops can by charged with false arrest"
Largely false in the US.
Oops, we fucked up is the excuse and it's excused.
Eventually, the POTUS will get shot by police, "by mistake" and they'll end up excused.
The US has a massive gap between federal and state systems. Police are local, not quite state, not quite not. Federal officers, like Secret Service and FBI are federal.
Each have their own Constitutional boundaries.
So, it's entirely possible for a local police officer to conduct the behavior I suggested in the US.
God Save The Queen if such a system misidentified her, as US police don't think, as they have a "war on crime" mentality.
With them literally thinking that they're soldiers in a literal war.
I know, I know enough of them.
Not very mentally flexible at all.
They've spent the past decade ever so slowly inching away from their previous claims that Tasers were somehow inherently cardiac safe. A deleted 'Cardiac Safety' webpage here, a changed adjective there. It's all on file.
I'm not convince that they have a strong Corporate Ethics program. Best that you count your spoons quickly.
Anything, literally anything, that incapacitates a person can not be guaranteed "safe". Not even a giant pillow made of goose down that weighs the opponent to the floor.
If you're firing a taser, it's because you're under physical threat (if it's not, you need better police... don't expect technology to solve your training issues). At that point, the risk of ANYTHING you do to avert that threat is that it might be a threat to the guy posing it. Might.
However, the alternative is... physical confrontation, or shooting them. At that point, I'd use a taser every time, thanks. If they were legal, I was trained, etc. No, I wouldn't necessarily use a gun at all unless my actual life was in immediate threat, I abhor guns. But that a taser might hurt even an otherwise healthy person? Yeah, sure, sorry about that. Tough luck.
The problem you have is not Tasers, not guns, and not some unspecified health risk. It's that someone is either under physical threat and needs to respond (in which case, tasers are safer than knives, gun, batons or even fists), or that they use the weapon when they shouldn't.
Sure, maybe their marketing claims are bogus and they have removed them. No different to anything else commercial. But tarring them with the evil brush just because they make a device you're supposed to use in self-defence and that device *might* hurt someone... what a damn shame.
@Lee D
Actual use of tasers is 99+% *NOT* as a replacement for gun fire. So the comparison of tasers to guns is nearly 100% specious.
Actual taser use is to impose (extreme) pain compliance, either from a "safe" distance, or to impose some extrajudicial light torture up close.
The overwhelming non-applicability of the gun lethality comparison is the very first tidbit that needs to be hoisted aboard.
"Actual taser use is to impose (extreme) pain compliance, either from a "safe" distance, or to impose some extrajudicial light torture up close."
Yes, that's the primary problem with Tasers. They're used as means of torture.
Funny, though, that when their use was being sold to the public, that wasn't their selling point. They were offered as a safer alternative to guns.
Yes that's a pretty good description of all UK efforts in this area.
Facial recognition. Sure it's got a 98% false positive rate. We're rolling it out anyway.
Linking FR to the backend police databases. We're doing it.
Enabling legislation for Automatic Number Plate Recognition? Whatever for?
for my body camera request and what finally arrives is my original request ...
cop: yelling and screaming at me about fence permit ...
me: is that thing on. ... cop: 24/7 ... me: mine too ... cop out back taking pictures ... me waving ....
cop writes me up for permit violation - cameras on utility pole
City wants nothing to do with fence permit, none required and have zoning approval
City really doesn't want utility pole issue ... not their problem or pole ... Pai got it set up so I can just declare I'm an Internet service with expedited approval
Out checking property markers two weeks later.
Cop shows up. Told him I'm filing a harassment complaint ...
cop: so what ... me: I want the video on what was said by that Trump loving, Hispanic woman to get you riled up ...
cop orders me out of street and then pulls over with lights flashing.
AND NOW THE FUCKING VIDEO CAN"T BE FOUND!!! WHO CARES ABOUT AI!
OK, quoting your actual words from the opening paragraph:
today's facial recognition technology is not safe for making serious decisions.
Is anyone seriously trying to claim otherwise? There's a world of difference between making a serious decision and flagging something for human attention.
A couple of years back, I had a nasty incident with police, who thought I was someone else (who I've never met, let alone know why they wanted to arrest him) and wouldn't accept I'm me[1]. Facial recognition technology might have helped there, and - crucially - couldn't have made things worse!
[1] Their evidence? I opened the door at my home, where the man they wanted had previously lived. I had never thought an estate agent could be so useful as the one who manages this place and eventually was contacted to confirm my identity - and when the occupant had changed - in a manner they'd accept!
Nick Kew writes (WRT facial recognition not being safe for making serious decisions): "Is anyone seriously trying to claim otherwise?"
I was rather under the impression that the UK Government was making some such claim with its incoming checks on UK and other EU passports, and its facial scanning booths and 'biometric' passport photographs.
Best regards
Well you've got the guy responsible for security at the Tokyo Olympics who really doesn't seem to have gotten that memo.
Making a body camera is a trivial exercise these days. Making a system that can collect evidence quality video and audio, manging it through a chain of custody, is a whole different game. These companies sell systems, its how they can justify selling the individual units for silly prices.
They're also aware of the legal implications of getting things wrong. No facial recognition system is going to be 100% perfect so it will make mistakes and those mistakes could cause legal blowback, including a liability issue for the manufacturer. Hence the need to be super-cautious. However, in real life these systems only need to work as well as, or preferably somewhat better than, human recognition to be useful because they're not going to be used instead of humans but as an assistant.
There's a lot more to this technology than just matching a face to a name. If you arrive at Los Angeles airport at the international terminal and you're a US passport holder you'll be processed automatically by a kiosk. Image processing is also being used to identify people who are acting oddly or looking stressed (or rather "more stressed than normal"). This stuff is intrusive, is potentially a civil liberties killer but then its really only ANPR for people and everyone in the UK's been living with ANPR and its consequences for years, haven't they?
Talking about this Cressida Dick, I actually met her.
It must have been ten or twelve years ago, in a pitch dark alley in a non-public area of Gatwick airport (I was a first officer at the time). I recall distinctly because I was lost and saw a plod in the shadows so I came up from behind¹ and boomed out an "Excuse me Sir!" It turned out it was a she, of course, so at first I was a bit embarrassed for the mistake but then I realised she was a capital-D Dyke² if I ever saw one (and I've seen quite a few) and she seemed almost proud of having been called "sir". Very well educated too, judging by her demeanour and pronunciation.
I didn't know at the time that she had been responsible for the assassination of Mr de Menezes.
Anyway, I'd totally forgot about it but I saw her name in the subheading and the episode came back to me.
¹ Possibly not the most comforting thing in the world to have some bloke chase you up a dark alley shouting at you in a Scottish accent, I thought afterwards.
² As in a lesbian that looks and acts masculine.
Burr-Brown threw away serious money at this in the '80s. DSP over the VMEbus.
It kind of worked. Their system was 100% accurate at recognising the four design engineers, utterly useless at recognising the rest of the factory staff.
It mistook me for a girl, which was wrenching because she was a very pretty girl. Didn't know whether to feel insulted or complimented. It was a conversation starter at least, but not a conversation that led to positive results.
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