Black Americans More Worried By Police Use Of Facial Recognition Than White, Hispanic Americans, Poll Finds

Breaking Innovation Black Americans More Worried By Police Use Of Facial Recognition Than White, Hispanic Americans, Poll Finds Phoebe Liu Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. I write about innovation and technology. New! Follow this author to improve your content experience.

Got it! Jul 14, 2022, 03:56pm EDT | Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Topline Only 22% of Black Americans say the use of facial recognition technology would lead to safer policing, significantly lower than the 36% of white Americans and 40% of Hispanic Americans who believe so, according to a new Pew Research Center study , which comes amid criticism of the technology as racially biased. Approximately one-fifth of Black Americans said widespread use of facial recognition technology . .

. [+] would make policing safer. Phoebe Liu Key Facts Overall, 34% of the 10,260 respondents, who were surveyed in November, said facial recognition technology would make policing safer, while 40% said it would make no difference.

Among Black adults, 48% said police would use facial recognition to monitor Black and Hispanic neighborhoods “much more often” than other neighborhoods, compared to 18% and 37% of white and Hispanic respondents, respectively. Black adults are also more likely than white and Hispanic adults to think police would make more false arrests with more widespread facial recognition technology. Earlier this year, three senators called on federal agencies to stop using facial recognition technology built by Clearview AI, a company backed by billionaire Peter Thiel valued at $130 million.

Key Background Facial recognition technologies have long been criticized for racial bias and discrimination. In 2019, a landmark federal study from the National Institute of Standards and Technology found that African American and Asian people were 10 to 100 times more likely to be misidentified than white men, depending on the algorithm being tested. Law enforcement use of facial recognition technologies has become fairly widespread, with 20 of the 42 federal agencies that employ law enforcement officers using it in 2021 .

The potential biases of AI systems are additionally worrying when combined with a policing system that has a history of racial bias , especially against Black men. In the last couple of years, there has been a handful of well-documented cases where Black men were wrongfully arrested based on facial recognition technology. Key Quote “Although suspicion toward communities of color has historical roots that span decades, new developments like facial recognition technologies (FRT) and machine learning algorithms have drastically enlarged the precision and scope of potential surveillance,” reads a Brookings Institute paper from April.

Contra Law enforcement officials have repeatedly emphasized that facial recognition can be a helpful tool for investigations and should not be primary evidence for an arrest. Further Reading A “Threat To Black Communities”: Senators Call On Immigration Cops And FBI To Quit Using Clearview Facial Recognition ( Forbes ) How Black Americans view the use of face recognition technology by police ( Pew Research Center ) How Wrongful Arrests Based on AI Derailed 3 Men’s Lives ( WIRED ) Police surveillance and facial recognition: Why data privacy is imperative for communities of color ( Brookings Institute ) Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn . Phoebe Liu Editorial Standards Print Reprints & Permissions.