The technology in question was responsible for recognizing individuals based on their gender, age or skin color. IBM and the New York Police (NYPD) did not inform the citizens.
A recent report from The Incercept reveals that the IBM company has exploited images of CCTV cameras from the New York police to train its facial recognition technology. Published on September 6 in partnership with The Investigate Fund, the article indicates that the company had access to thousands of photographs from about fifty different cameras. Based on these snapshots, the IBM system was able to learn to distinguish the many physical characteristics of individuals, but also potential threats such as parcels or abandoned luggage.
According to " confidential corporate documents ", IBM had been developing such a project for a decade in partnership with the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative anti-terrorism center in New York. New York police reportedly had access to IBM's technology in 2007 through its subsidiary Vexcel. A few years later, the American society would have tested the system by analyzing the bodies and faces of citizens before archiving this data and using it to improve technology.
Interviewed, NYPD spokesman Peter Donald confirmed the existence of this collaboration: "From time to time, videos have been provided to IBM to ensure that the product it develops would work in the environment. overcrowded urban New York and help us protect the city". He pointed out that the facial recognition tool was only used for " evaluation " purposes and that officers were instructed to exclude the skin color test. Donald added that the new version Intelligent Video Analytics 2.0proposed by IBM had been rejected because it allowed searching for people according to their origin. Indeed, the technology was able to focus on individuals according to the keywords " Asian ", " black " or " white ". It was stated explicitly: "Although research tools on race or skin tone were offered to the New York police, they were explicitly refused by the latter".
According to the report, the New York police would no longer use IBM technology since 2017. In a statement, the US company stated: " IBM is committed to advancing and using the new technologies of responsible way and is recognized for its policies of promoting diversity and inclusion.
A few months ago, it was the ACLU that pinned Amazon after discovering that the American company was working with the authorities around a facial recognition technology. Indeed, the association revealed that the company wanted to sell its tool to the government to allow the latter to have a powerful system. She recalls: "With artificial intelligence, Recognition can identify, track and analyze people in real time and recognize up to 100 people in a single image. He can quickly analyze the information he collects on databases with tens of millions of faces". During the revelations of the ACLU, the technology was in test on three of the cameras of the city of Orlando in the United States, without the citizens being aware of it.
For a number of years now, the collaboration between technological companies and the authorities has been worrying associations that fight for individual freedoms. While these refer to the fact that, in these cases, it is a question of large-scale surveillance, the majority of associations also mention the reinforcement of discrimination. A few months ago, the ACLU tested Amazon's system, which mistakenly identified 28 members of Congress as criminals. Of the total number of politicians identified by Recognition, 39% were African-Americans, where they represent only 20% of the 535 members of Congress.
A recent report from The Incercept reveals that the IBM company has exploited images of CCTV cameras from the New York police to train its facial recognition technology. Published on September 6 in partnership with The Investigate Fund, the article indicates that the company had access to thousands of photographs from about fifty different cameras. Based on these snapshots, the IBM system was able to learn to distinguish the many physical characteristics of individuals, but also potential threats such as parcels or abandoned luggage.
A collaboration between IBM and the authorities that dates from 2012
According to " confidential corporate documents ", IBM had been developing such a project for a decade in partnership with the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative anti-terrorism center in New York. New York police reportedly had access to IBM's technology in 2007 through its subsidiary Vexcel. A few years later, the American society would have tested the system by analyzing the bodies and faces of citizens before archiving this data and using it to improve technology.
Interviewed, NYPD spokesman Peter Donald confirmed the existence of this collaboration: "From time to time, videos have been provided to IBM to ensure that the product it develops would work in the environment. overcrowded urban New York and help us protect the city". He pointed out that the facial recognition tool was only used for " evaluation " purposes and that officers were instructed to exclude the skin color test. Donald added that the new version Intelligent Video Analytics 2.0proposed by IBM had been rejected because it allowed searching for people according to their origin. Indeed, the technology was able to focus on individuals according to the keywords " Asian ", " black " or " white ". It was stated explicitly: "Although research tools on race or skin tone were offered to the New York police, they were explicitly refused by the latter".
According to the report, the New York police would no longer use IBM technology since 2017. In a statement, the US company stated: " IBM is committed to advancing and using the new technologies of responsible way and is recognized for its policies of promoting diversity and inclusion.
Beyond IBM, a technology that is debating
A few months ago, it was the ACLU that pinned Amazon after discovering that the American company was working with the authorities around a facial recognition technology. Indeed, the association revealed that the company wanted to sell its tool to the government to allow the latter to have a powerful system. She recalls: "With artificial intelligence, Recognition can identify, track and analyze people in real time and recognize up to 100 people in a single image. He can quickly analyze the information he collects on databases with tens of millions of faces". During the revelations of the ACLU, the technology was in test on three of the cameras of the city of Orlando in the United States, without the citizens being aware of it.
For a number of years now, the collaboration between technological companies and the authorities has been worrying associations that fight for individual freedoms. While these refer to the fact that, in these cases, it is a question of large-scale surveillance, the majority of associations also mention the reinforcement of discrimination. A few months ago, the ACLU tested Amazon's system, which mistakenly identified 28 members of Congress as criminals. Of the total number of politicians identified by Recognition, 39% were African-Americans, where they represent only 20% of the 535 members of Congress.
0 comments:
Post a Comment