12 | New Scientist | 19 October 2019Health Machine learningClare Wilson Adam VaughanMOST people who think they have
a long-lasting form of Lyme disease
may have chronic fatigue syndrome,
said a panel of UK infectious disease
experts on 9 October.
Lyme disease is a potentially
serious infection caused by bacteria
passed on by tick bites. If untreated,
it can lead to fatigue, joint pain and
memory problems. But if diagnosed
in time, it can be quashed with a
short course of antibiotics.
Some people who have persistent
symptoms believe that they have a
long-term infection, or chronic Lyme
disease, and take long courses of
antibiotics. This can lead to other
infections such as sepsis.Matt Dryden at Hampshire
Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said
there is a large overlap in symptoms
ascribed to chronic Lyme and those
of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).
“Most have CFS. What clinches
it for me is that there’s a great
group of these patients in Australia
where [Lyme disease bacteria]
have never been detected,” he said.
CFS is itself controversial: some
think it involves immune system
problems, perhaps triggered by
an infection, while others believe
psychological factors contribute.
“There’s so much stigma
associated with chronic fatigue.
Our treatments and support
network [for CFS] are not great,”
said Sarah Logan at the Hospital
for Tropical Diseases in London.
Julia Knight of the patient
support group Lyme Disease UK
says some doctors still don’t
believe there is any Lyme disease
in the UK. “They are quick to label
people with CFS. It could be that
people with chronic Lyme are being
misdiagnosed with CFS,” she says. ❚Chronic Lyme
disease may really
be chronic fatigueThe UK government went
ahead with a face-detection
system for checking passport
application photos, despite
knowing the technology
failed to work well for people
in some ethnic minorities.
Face-recognition technology
has a record of failing to
recognise people with certain
skin tones. Documents released
by the Home Office last week
show it was aware that these
problems were likely to occur
with its system too.
“User research was carried
out with a wide range of ethnic
groups and did identify that
people with very light or very
dark skin found it difficult to
provide an acceptable passport
photograph,” the department
wrote in a document released
in response to a freedom of
information (FOI) request,
submitted by campaign group
MedConfidential. “However;
the overall performance was
judged sufficient to deploy.”
Since it went live in June 2016,
some users have had problems
with the service, which checks
photos are suitable before they
are submitted in a passport
application. Joshua Bada, a black
sports coach, was told by the
system recently that his photo
didn’t meet requirements after
it mistook his lips for an open
mouth. And the service wrongly
suggested that Cat Hallam, a
black technology officer at Keele
University, UK, had her eyes
closed and her mouth open.
“What is very disheartening
about all of this is they were
aware of it,” says Hallam.
“A person’s race should not
be a barrier to using technology
for essential public services,”
says a spokesperson for the
UK’s Equality and Human
Rights Commission.The Home Office says
users can override the photo
checker and proceed with
their passport application,
but observers say that misses
the point. “Even with the
user being able to override
the selection, it is still creating
a – largely racialised – disparity
in experience between users,”
says Os Keyes at the University
of Washington, Seattle.
Users may be reluctant to use
the override function given that
the website warns that peoplemay have a problem with their
application if the photo doesn’t
meet the rules, says Hallam.
Face-detection software is
normally trained on thousands
of images. If data sets used for
training a system aren’t large or
diverse enough, bias can result.
The government said that
to mitigate the issue it would
“continue to conduct userresearch and usability testing
with appropriate participants to
ensure that users from different
ethnicities can follow the photo
guidance and provide a photo
that passes the photo checks”.
A Home Office spokesperson
told New Scientist that the
department “will continue
working to improve this process
for all of our customers”.
The government promise
of “we’ll fix it later” is “a
depressingly common response
to people pointing out biases
in technology”, says Keyes.
Samir Jeraj at the Race
Equality Foundation says: “It
clearly shows it wasn’t a priority
for them that it would work for
people with black skin.” The
government should be clearer
about what improvements
it will make, he says. And it
wouldn’t cost the Passport
Office anything to put a note
on its website acknowledging
the issue, he says. ❚UK knew its photo checker
could fail with dark skin
PAUL ELLIS/GETTY IMAGESNews
Face-recognition systems
can fail if not trained on a
diverse selection of faces“ It clearly shows it wasn’t
a priority for them that
it would work for people
with black skin”“ Long courses of antibiotics
to treat chronic Lyme
disease can lead to
infections such as sepsis”