Automagically Arrested in Atlanta by Abominable AI

[bolverk 29360]

Black motorist is stopped and arrested based on a warrant out of Louisiana for theft but released six days later when it was learned to be a case of mistaken identity.

1. Jefferson Parish cops had used facial recognition software to determine his identity from surveillance cameras. Not mentioned in the story, but from what I've heard the AI used in facial recognition does a shitty job when dealing with Black faces.
2. PDs are turning to e-warrants to get quick approval from judges too lazy to actually look at the evidence.
3. How this guy was identified while driving on a freeway is not disclosed. It could've been a case of "driving while Black" and the cop just decided to run his plates. Or it could've been one of the hundreds of plate scanners that are apparently used in Atlanta that sent out an alert
4. Dude and his family are out thousands of dollars to clear his name.

It seems we're going to need a whole helluva lot more checks and balances on this electronic police state thing.

No paywall link to the story: https://archive.ph/T6baC

[Neonmoon 38127]

2 minutes ago, bolverk said:

PDs are turning to e-warrants to get quick approval from judges too lazy to actually look at the evidence.

[JMFP 1117]

9 minutes ago, bolverk said:

 

It seems we're going to need a whole helluva lot more checks and balances on this electronic police state thing.

 

[NeverMarryAStripper 21780]

NVM

Edited March 31, 2023 by NeverMarryAStripper

[Deej 76511]

4 hours ago, bolverk said:

from what I've heard the AI used in facial recognition does a shitty job when dealing with Black faces

Law enforcement thinks it does a great job.

[Sawbonz 27376]

9 hours ago, bolverk said:

Jefferson Parish cops had used facial recognition software

[Longhornstampede 3173]

So now even the cameras claim they all look the same.... When will it end? Next they'll be arresting someone wearing a sombrero.... 

[Captainant 27311]

This isn't a story about AI.

It's a story about cops unfairly locking up people without actual due process - the police lied to the judge, and the judge didn't give enough of a fuck to validate the arrest warrant. 

[TwiceHorn 31184]

On 3/31/2023 at 12:52 PM, bolverk said:

Black motorist is stopped and arrested based on a warrant out of Louisiana for theft but released six days later when it was learned to be a case of mistaken identity.

1. Jefferson Parish cops had used facial recognition software to determine his identity from surveillance cameras. Not mentioned in the story, but from what I've heard the AI used in facial recognition does a shitty job when dealing with Black faces.
2. PDs are turning to e-warrants to get quick approval from judges too lazy to actually look at the evidence.
3. How this guy was identified while driving on a freeway is not disclosed. It could've been a case of "driving while Black" and the cop just decided to run his plates. Or it could've been one of the hundreds of plate scanners that are apparently used in Atlanta that sent out an alert
4. Dude and his family are out thousands of dollars to clear his name.

It seems we're going to need a whole helluva lot more checks and balances on this electronic police state thing.

No paywall link to the story: https://archive.ph/T6baC

There are a ton of examples where white people are used as the primary "models" for "electro-optical" image analysis, like medicine, this, etc. that makes them inaccurate applied to black people.

That's quite unfortunate and an example of racial inequality of an institutional, but also probably incidental variety.  Can you imagine the uproar if it was discovered that facial recognition for criminal purposes was primarily trained on black faces.

A bizarre conundrum.

[Guest]

Why does it have to be one way or the other?

[Captainant 27311]

18 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

There are a ton of examples where white people are used as the primary "models" for "electro-optical" image analysis, like medicine, this, etc. that makes them inaccurate applied to black people.

That's quite unfortunate and an example of racial inequality of an institutional, but also probably incidental variety.  Can you imagine the uproar if it was discovered that facial recognition for criminal purposes was primarily trained on black faces.

A bizarre conundrum.

From a raw image recognition problem perspective, people with darker complexions generally need a much higher rez image and/or extremely bright lighting to get good results. Most point and shoot digital cameras and surveillance cameras are crappy, and along the lines of what youre talking about here: tuned for white people. There's been all sorts of stories of cameras detecting "blinking" on Asian folks, same sort of thing. 

I'd bet from a purely technical perspective, their facial recognition model didn't have good training data on black people. Grainy images, poor contrast, etc, bad data for ML training. Garbage in, garbage out. 

But ultimately, the model isn't what illegally detained a man for a week. It was the broken justice and legal system 

[Nivek 16808]

Is he able to recover his losses from the state?

[TwiceHorn 31184]

12 minutes ago, Nivek said:

Is he able to recover his losses from the state?

Probably not "automatically," as those statutes typically apply only to wrongful conviction.

He could file a civil rights action, but would likely be stymied by qualified immunity.  This is one of those classic cases where if you define the violation as "arrested the wrong dude on mistaken identity," that's likely an established violation of civil rights, but if you classify it more specifically as "arrested the wrong dude because facial recognition technology isn't good in this application," well, that's a novel question of civil rights law and entitled to immunity.

[Captainant 27311]

1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

Probably not "automatically," as those statutes typically apply only to wrongful conviction.

He could file a civil rights action, but would likely be stymied by qualified immunity.  This is one of those classic cases where if you define the violation as "arrested the wrong dude on mistaken identity," that's likely an established violation of civil rights, but if you classify it more specifically as "arrested the wrong dude because facial recognition technology isn't good in this application," well, that's a novel question of civil rights law and entitled to immunity.

That sort of intellectually dishonest excuse enrages me - it's tacitly arguing that they have zero agency or ownership of their decisions or actions. Which is complete and utter bullshit. 

It's like a cop arguing that they didn't do anything wrong when they raided the wrong house and murdered the residents because they got a bad tip-off and therefore it's not their fault

[Nivek 16808]

@Captainant

[Wally Fairway 5517]

On 3/31/2023 at 1:52 PM, bolverk said:

It seems we're going to need a whole helluva lot more checks and balances on this electronic police state thing.

exactly what checks and balances do we have now? asking for a friend, who happens to be blek