Facial-recognition for photo tagging on Facebook dates
back to 2010, when it was pretty common for people to
photo dump dozens of photos from a night out. How
many of us woke up to emails back then that said
“Friend A tagged you in 96 photos on Facebook”?
(Eventually, Facebook gave everyone the option to
approve tagged photos before they appeared on
timelines). But facial recognition has since grown ever
more sophisticated, with major companies including
$PD]RQ,%0DQG0LFURVRIWGHYHORSLQJDGYDQFHG
systems for corporate clients. One problem: These
systems are often wrong, particularly when it comes to
identifying people of color.
Amid pushback from privacy groups and the public, all
three companies have scaled back their facial-
UHFRJQLWLRQH̆RUWV0LFURVRIWVD\VLWZRQ¶WR̆HUWKHWHFK
to law enforcement unless Congress acts, Amazon has
SDXVHGLWVUROORXWWRODZHQIRUFHPHQWLQGH¿QLWHO\DQG
,%0KDVVFUDSSHGLWVH̆RUWVIRUQRZ
PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION (^) I SUBSCRIBE (^) I DECEMBER 2021
These systems
are often
wrong,
particularly
when it comes
to identifying
people of color.