Read on Twitter
I'm so proud to announce that @techreview launched In Machines We Trust today. We open with a series on policing and face recognition that I've been reporting since early February, before George Floyd's death and before the US lockdown. A thread... https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/in-machines-we-trust/id1523584878
(1/10) First, I am humbled to part of the team that made this: @StrongReporter , @_KarenHao , @emmacillekens and @Reillymj
(2/10) @PeteFussey walks w Jen in London where live face id was deployed. He introduces us to informed consent. "If you walk 30m to our left, you're in a public area and the cameras are owned by public authorities. If you walk 30m to our right, they're owned by private companies"
(3/10) And Hamid Khan of @stoplapdspying argues that advanced technologies have enhanced racism in policing. His interview was so dense and important, we published his interview as a standalone Q&A too. https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/06/05/1002709/the-activist-dismantling-racist-police-algorithms/
(4/10) And importantly, we hear the story of Robert Williams, a Black man who was falsely arrested in Detroit because of a flawed face ID match. Face recognition is known to be biased. (Special thx to @ACLUofMichigan) https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/technology/facial-recognition-arrest.html
(5/10) We got to sit down with two of the biggest execs in the space, Hoan Ton-That of ClearviewAI and Artem Kukharenko of NtechLab. Both have algos that sit on billions of public photos and videos. Both say its up to regulators and everyday people in reign in their products.
(6/10) In July, I got to speak with one of the leaders of the BLM movement in Minneapolis in my home state. He's convinced he's already been identified by police. His passion is palpable. He doesn't know what the future looks like but says "there will be no going back".
(7/10) And we hear from leaders in the field @rajiinio , @STOPSpyingNY , @GeorgetownCPT who explain how the tech impacts free speech, lacks oversight and even skirts search warrants. Some caution that face id might be used to identify protestors after the murder of George Floyd
(8/10) We ask police in Las Vegas and Miami to give us a look under the hood at how they use and manage face id. "So imagine walking into a room and you have a massive display of TV screens. Its like a surveillance room but a little bit more high tech" says LVPD.
(9/10) We've found that policies around use of the tech vary widely from city to city. It's going to be up to each jurisdiction to regulate it themselves but feedback loops for oversight/accountability between PDs and the public too often don't exist.
(10/10) At the end of all of this, the only clarity I have is that this moment is important. There is a national movement for regulation - in many cases for the first time - and its intersecting with our reevaluation of US policing. We desperately need to be paying attention
