<p><strong>YOU ARE <del>NOT</del> A MATCH.</strong> The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) just spent $12.33 to test a system that could quite literally cost people their lives. On Thursday, the nonprofit organization, which focuses on preserving the rights of U.S. citizens, published a <a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-technology/surveillance-technologies/amazons-face-recognition-falsely-matched-28" target="_blank" rel="noopener">blog post</a> detailing its test of Rekognition, a facial identification tool developed and sold by Amazon.</p>
<p>Using Rekognition&#8217;s default setting of 80 percent confidence (meaning the system was 80 percent certain it was correct when it signaled a match), the ACLU scanned a database of 25,000 publicly available mugshots looking to match them to photos of every sitting representative in Congress, in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.</p>
<p>Rekognition matched 28 Congresspeople to mugshots. It was wrong, but it found matches anyway.</p>
<p><strong>THE POLICE AND P.O.C.</strong> Not only did Rekognition mistakenly believe that those 28 Congresspeople were the same people in the mugshots, the people it wrongfully matched were disproportionately people of color; while people of color make up just 20 percent of Congress, according to the ACLU, they accounted for 39 percent of the false matches.</p>
<p>&#8220;People of color are already disproportionately harmed by police practices, and it’s easy to see how Rekognition could exacerbate that,&#8221; wrote the ACLU in its post. &#8220;An identification — whether accurate or not — could cost people their freedom or even their lives.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>AMAZON&#8217;S RESPONSE.</strong> An Amazon spokesperson <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/26/17615634/amazon-rekognition-aclu-mug-shot-congress-facial-recognition" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told <em>The Verge</em></a> that poor calibration was likely the reason Rekognition falsely matched so many members of Congress. “While 80 percent confidence is an acceptable threshold for photos of hot dogs, chairs, animals, or other social media use cases, it wouldn’t be appropriate for identifying individuals with a reasonable level of certainty,” said the spokesperson. They said Amazon recommends at least a 95 percent confidence threshold for any situation where a match might have significant consequences, such as when used by law enforcement agencies.</p>
<p><strong>HALT!</strong> While anyone can use the system relatively cheaply (Rekognition, according to its web site, &#8220;charges you only for the images processed, minutes of video processed, and faces stored&#8221;), like the ACLU did, Amazon is actively marketing Rekognition to government and <a href="https://futurism.com/police-surveillance-gets-terrifying-boost-from-amazons-ai-facial-recognition/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">law enforcement agencies</a>. Several are already using the service.</p>
<p>The ACLU isn&#8217;t the only organization actively petitioning against this use; Amazon <a href="https://www.aclu.org/letter/letter-shareholders-amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-regarding-rekognition" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shareholders</a> and <a href="https://futurism.com/amazon-rekognition-employees/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">employees</a> have urged the company to stop providing Rekognition to government agencies. So have dozens of <a href="https://www.aclu.org/letter-nationwide-coalition-amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-regarding-rekognition" target="_blank" rel="noopener">civil rights groups</a> and tens of thousands <a href="https://action.aclu.org/petition/amazon-stop-selling-surveillance" target="_blank" rel="noopener">members of the public</a>.</p>
<p>So far, Amazon has not indicated that it plans to comply with these requests. But perhaps, if members of Congress see just how flawed the system really is, they&#8217;ll be compelled to take action, placing a halt on any law enforcement use of facial recognition software, as the ACLU requests in its blog post.</p>
<p><strong>READ MORE:</strong> <a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-technology/surveillance-technologies/amazons-face-recognition-falsely-matched-28" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Amazon’s Face Recognition Falsely Matched 28 Members of Congress With Mugshots</a> [ACLU]</p>
<p><em><strong>More on Rekognition: <a href="https://futurism.com/police-surveillance-gets-terrifying-boost-from-amazons-ai-facial-recognition/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Police Surveillance Is Getting a Helping Hand From…Amazon!</a></strong></em></p>


It also disproportionately matched people of color.

Amazon Rekognition falsely matched 28 members of Congress to mugshots

Artificial Intelligence

Amazon's facial recognition software is far from perfect, an ACLU experiment shows. Maybe Amazon should stop marketing it to government agencies.

Amazon Rekognition Falsely Matched 28 Members of Congress to Mugshots

ACLU's test illustrates why law enforcement officials shouldn't rely on the system.

<p>Amazon! They market things they want you to buy, like books, Prime subscriptions, and sauté pans. They do this well, because you probably buy things from Amazon, or know someone who does. They also now actively market their artificial intelligence-powered facial recognition software, Rekognition, for use in police surveillance. And yes, they also this well, too.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.aclunc.org/docs/20180522_ARD.pdf">Documents</a> obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reveal that Amazon has been working with governments and police departments to build up advanced surveillance systems in a number of counties and states.</p>
<p>While Rekognition has been used by police in Washington County, Oregon to search for suspects for the past year and a half, <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/machine-learning/amazon-rekognition-announces-real-time-face-recognition-support-for-recognition-of-text-in-image-and-improved-face-detection/">according to Amazon</a>, the newly-released documents reveal the extent to which mass surveillance programs are being developed with Amazon’s cooperation.</p>
<p>These programs can include using all the cameras already found around a city to give police information on the activity of any “person of interest” as they appear on screen. They could even involve building Rekognition software into the <a href="https://futurism.com/body-cameras-will-be-mandatory-for-all-nypd-patrol-officers-by-2019/">body cameras</a> that police allegedly wear to increase transparency and public accountability (even though the cameras tend to mysteriously malfunction at inopportune moments).</p>
<p>Amazon Rekognition is capable of scanning video feeds and images for up to a hundred faces at once. Rekognition can find, identify, and track people in real time, and was recently used for a <a href="https://futurism.com/royal-wedding-facial-recognition-ai/">cute-yet-ethically-dubious</a> “who’s who?” broadcast of the recent royal wedding.</p>
<p>As the ACLU argued <a href="https://www.aclunc.org/docs/20180522_AR_Coalition_Letter.pdf">today in their letter</a> to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who touts his company as being exceptionally “customer-centric,” encouraging and even allowing police to use such advanced surveillance technology undermines people’s rights and primes police-work for abuse. In particular, the ACLU is concerned that police would use these tools to target political groups or <a href="https://futurism.com/lapd-documents-show-their-policing-algorithms-continue-to-target-minorities-and-past-offenders/">people who are otherwise vulnerable</a>.</p>
<p>Some of the documents obtained by the ACLU show the user interface for the facial recognition software. Police will be able to upload any headshot and quickly receive likely matches along with biographic information including the person’s name, race, date of birth, and information on their criminal record.</p>
<figure id="attachment_131536" style="width: 710px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="wp-image-131536" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2018/05/rekognition.png" alt="" width="710" height="383" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Credit: ACLU</figcaption></figure>
<p>Amazon brags that Rekognition’s facial database includes tens of millions of faces, though it remains unclear how that came to be the case. Whatever the reason may be, the result translates to police, using Amazon’s AI-powered facial recognition system, to potentially track anyone — not just the suspects in a particular criminal case.</p>
<p>Some might label that kind of fear of these kinds of developments as deeply (if not <em>suspiciously</em>!) paranoid of police!</p>
<p>Some might also do well to direct their attention to decent reasons to be paranoid (<a href="https://www.citylab.com/equity/2011/12/surveillance-cameras-threat-police-privacy/806/">mainly</a>, <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/03/06/new-orleans-surveillance-cameras-nopd-police/">police</a>).</p>


The ACLU says that these powerful, ethically-questionable surveillance tools prime the system for abuse of power.

Police surveillance gets a terrifying boost from Amazon's AI facial recognition

Future Society

Amazon's Rekognition, an AI-powered face-tracking algorithm, allows police to track persons of interest in real time, which the ACLU says will cause abuse.

Police Surveillance Is Getting a Helping Hand from…Amazon!

Rekognition allows police to keep track of elected officials, immigrants, and everyone else.

<p>Water, electricity, internet: Three things that Americans can increasingly not live without.</p>
<p>Recently, though, that last item has seemed under threat. Earlier this year <a href="https://futurism.com/fcc-published-net-neutrality-repeal-order-whats-next/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the FCC repealed net neutrality</a>, allowing U.S. internet service providers (ISPs) to control the price of broadband speed and threatening equal access to information, education and other essential online services.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://futurism.com/democrats-net-neutrality/">battle may seem lost</a>. But the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has a plan to fight back.</p>
<p>In a recent report shipped to 100 mayors in 30 states, ACLU makes the case that, instead of leaving internet in the hands of private companies, it should be the concern of local administrators.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.aclu.org/report/public-internet-option?redirect=muni-broadband-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The report points out</a> that the move would be perfectly legal, too. &#8220;Nothing the FCC has done prevents a city, county, or town from directing its own, municipally run service to honor strong network neutrality and privacy policies,&#8221; it reads.</p>
<div>Empowering cities to run their own internet networks could help bypass the power of private corporations, but has other important benefits, too. According to a <a href="http://ei.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/SingerAssessingImpact6.17.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report by the consulting firm Economist Incorporated</a>, over 56 million households in the country don&#8217;t have access to high-speed broadband. That&#8217;s partly because many communities are too small and remote to be a good investment for ISPs.</div>
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<p><iframe width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zq-2Yk5OgKc?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
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<div>Take<em> </em>the village of Pinetops, North Carolina. <a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xwzj9q/the-town-that-had-free-gigabit-internet">According to <em>Motherboard</em></a>, the town of 1,300 people had a long legal struggle with Big Telecom and eventually won the right to keep its municipal broadband — until a private company decided to step in and offer the same service.</div>
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<div>In remote communities, people don&#8217;t mind paying for internet access: &#8220;We had it and they wanted to take it away,&#8221; Suzanne Coker Craig, a local commissioner and business owner told <em>Motherboard</em>. &#8220;Our folks are very excited to have it back.&#8221;</div>
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<div>At the core of ACLU&#8217;s call for action is the idea that internet access is a democratic right. &#8220;Municipal systems should be built to serve all residents equally,&#8221;<a href="https://www.aclu.org/report/public-internet-option?redirect=muni-broadband-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> the report says</a>, &#8220;even though the demands of affluent neighborhoods might be louder than others.&#8221; If Pinetops&#8217; experience is anything to go by, the idea is sure to face some stern opposition from private ISPs.</div>
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<div>But the case is strong for cities to take the lead, and the successful examples, <a href="https://muninetworks.org/content/most-municipal-networks-built-conservative-cities" target="_blank" rel="noopener">many of which are of conservative communities</a>, speak for themselves: &#8220;They’re reaping the benefits of local control over what has become an indispensable utility,&#8221; Jay Stanley, one of<a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/internet-speech/public-broadband-can-help-protect-open-internet-and-close-digital" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> the ACLU&#8217;s report authors</a>, wrote in a blogpost. &#8220;Other cities would be wise to consider taking a similar path.&#8221;</div>


The case is strong for cities to take the lead.

Super-local broadband may be the best way to preserve net neutrality

Rows of red network cables connected to router

In a new report, ACLU encourages mayors across the U.S. to set up public broadband services, so citizens can maintain equal internet access despite the recent net neutrality repeal. 

Super-Local Broadband May Be The Best Way to Preserve Net Neutrality

Access to the internet could become a public service.

<p>In the United States, a police officer has to get a warrant before searching the property of someone who&#8217;s under suspicion or has been arrested — a law that also covers electronic property like a mobile device or laptop. Yet that protection does not extend to airports, where Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees are free to search the electronic devices of anyone passing through the U.S. borders.</p>
<p>On March 12, (ACLU) Foundation of Northern California filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit requesting government documents that detail the policies around this process for domestic travelers, which the organization says are &#8220;shrouded in secrecy.&#8221;</p>
<p>“TSA is searching the electronic devices of domestic passengers, but without offering any reason for the search,” said ACLU staff attorney Vasudha Talla <a href="https://www.aclunc.org/news/aclu-northern-california-lawsuit-demands-information-tsa-searches-domestic-airline-passengers" target="_blank" rel="noopener">in a statement</a>. “We don’t know why the government is singling out some passengers, and we don’t know what exactly TSA is searching on the devices,&#8221; she said.  &#8220;Our phones and laptops contain very personal information, and the federal government should not be digging through our digital data without a warrant.”</p>
<p><iframe width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jNRJkNjSljA?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<p>The use of electronic property has become a hot legal issue of late, as <a href="https://futurism.com/personal-data-across-borders/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">governments seek more latitude</a> in using personal data to seek out and prosecute wrongdoers. <a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/43q4ng/border-guards-looked-through-nearly-60-percent-more-electronic-devices-in-2017-than-in-2016" target="_blank" rel="noopener">VICE Motherboard </a><a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/43q4ng/border-guards-looked-through-nearly-60-percent-more-electronic-devices-in-2017-than-in-2016" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reports</a> that U.S. Customs and Borders Protection (CBP) agents have recently increased the number of searches done on electronic devices: from 5,000 in 2015 to over 19,000 in 2016 and over 30,000 in 2017. That&#8217;s an increase of over 70 percent from 2015-2016, and nearly 60 percent from 2016-2017 — a spike that made its way into <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/31/us-border-phone-computer-searches-how-to-protect" target="_blank" rel="noopener">many a news report</a>.</p>
<p>An October 2017 <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/new-screenings-start-all-u-s-bound-airline-passengers-n814386" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announcement of increased screenings</a>, plus a <a href="https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/assets/documents/2018-Jan/CBP-Directive-3340-049A-Border-Search-of-Electronic-Media-Compliant.pdf">directive on electronic searches released by the CBP</a> earlier this year, suggest that the agency has no intention of stopping these searches.</p>
<q class="pullquote">“We don’t know why the government is singling out some passengers, and we don’t know what exactly TSA is searching on the devices&#8221;</q>
<p>&#8220;Travelers are obligated to present electronic devices and the information contained therein in a  condition that allows inspection of the device and its contents,&#8221; the mandate reads, noting: &#8220;<a href="https://futurism.com/instead-of-a-password-this-security-system-unlocks-via-your-heartbeat/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Passcodes or other means of access</a> may be requested and retained as needed to facilitate the examination of an electronic device or information contained on an electronic device, including information on the device that is accessible through software applications.&#8221;</p>
<p>Unless airport security <a href="https://futurism.com/automated-video-surveillance-streamline-airport-experience/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">gets a modern upgrade</a>, such policies could put passengers&#8217; privacy at serious risk. The ACLU&#8217;s lawsuit is seeking records from the TSA field office in San Francisco and the TSA headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, with a focus on the policies and protocols around searches, the equipment and software used to extract data, and how officers conducting the searches are trained. The ACLU did not receive a response to a public records request filed in December 2017, prompting this most recent lawsuit.</p>
<p>“It speaks to a growing attempt by the government to investigate individuals not based on probable cause or reasonable suspicion, but perhaps based on impermissible factors,” Talla <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/12/tsa-surveillance-laptops-cellphones-domestic-flights">told </a><i><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/12/tsa-surveillance-laptops-cellphones-domestic-flights">The Guardian</a>.</i>&#8220;These are materials that should not be terribly difficult to track down. We’re just not clear what they’re doing and why they’re doing it.”</p>


The number of searches have dramatically increased over the past two years.

The ACLU demands to know how TSA is screening your electronics

The ACLU has recently filed a lawsuit to discover why the Transportation Security Administration is increasingly screening passengers' electronic devices.

/Aclu

Artificial Intelligence

Amazon Rekognition Falsely Matched 28 Members of Congress to Mugshots

Future Society

Police Surveillance Is Getting a Helping Hand from…Amazon!

Future Society

Super-Local Broadband May Be The Best Way to Preserve Net Neutrality

Future Society

The ACLU Demands To Know How TSA Is Screening Your Electronics

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