Government Watchdog Finds Most U.S. Agencies Don’t Even Know Which Face Recognition Systems They Use

Despite the truth that greater than a dozen federal companies repeatedly use facial recognition tech, there’s hardly any oversight into the programs these companies use. That’s in accordance with a new report out Tuesday from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a federal watchdog company that provides congresspeople investigative assist.

Twenty totally different companies—from ICE and the FBI to the Department of Veterans Affairs and IRS—have been discovered utilizing facial recognition, in accordance with the report. Of the group, seventeen of the companies no less than partially relied on tech from a personal firm, like Vigilant Solutions or Clearview AI. But barely did any of the companies know for sure which private-owned programs workers have been utilizing.

“Thirteen federal agencies do not have awareness of what non-federal systems with facial recognition technology are used by employees,” the report reads. “These agencies have therefore not fully assessed the potential risks of using these systems, such as risks related to privacy and accuracy.”

And there’s a number of these dangers on the desk. There have been multiple studies exhibiting that facial recognition programs are generally worse at figuring out Black and Brown faces than these belonging to their White counterparts. Despite the truth that the federal government has identified about this particular shortcoming for years, we’ve seen numerous law enforcement companies—to not point out federal outfits like CBP—flip to the tech to apprehend folks, typically with disastrous outcomes. Back in April, a Detroit man named Robert Williams sued his local police after their company’s facial recognition tech wrongly recognized him as a runaway shoplifter, and arrested him. The Williams case is the most recent in a string of Black males being misidentified and wrongly arrested on account of shoddy facial recognition tech.

Evidently, no less than just a few federal companies are utilizing these programs with barely any oversight.

“When we requested information from one of the agencies about its use of non-federal systems, agency officials told us they had to poll field division personnel because the information was not maintained by the agency,” the GAO’s report continues. “Officials from another agency initially told us that its employees did not use non-federal systems; however, after conducting a poll, the agency learned that its employees had used a non-federal system to conduct more than 1,000 facial recognition searches.”

While many of those searches have been used to apprehend suspected unhealthy actors and for basic surveillance-y functions—there have been at least six agencies monitoring protestors within the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing, for instance—the tech has extra innocuous makes use of, too. The Transportation Security Authority (TSA) is utilizing the tech to establish vacationers earlier than they board their flights. The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) makes use of facial recognition amongst its staffers to authenticate officer’s identities earlier than they step into safe services. Per the GAO’s report, administrative officers used facial recognition tech to maintain tabs on folks below court-mandated supervision once they couldn’t meet in individual as a result of ongoing pandemic.

But no matter use, the GAO stated, each company wants extra oversight. At the very least, they need to know what sort of tech they’re utilizing, and who’s offering it—not solely to carry cops accountable when these programs go flawed however to carry the tech corporations behind the tech accountable, as nicely.