Facial Recognition Gone Wrong

An anonymous reader writes "John H. Gass hadn't had a traffic ticket in years, so the Natick resident was surprised this spring when he received a letter from the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles informing him to cease driving because his license had been revoked. It turned out Gass was flagged because he looks like another driver, not because his image was being used to create a fake identity. His driving privileges were returned but, he alleges in a lawsuit, only after 10 days of bureaucratic wrangling to prove he is who he says he is. And apparently, he has company. Last year, the facial recognition system picked out more than 1,000 cases that resulted in State Police investigations, officials say. And some of those people are guilty of nothing more than looking like someone else. Not all go through the long process that Gass says he endured, but each must visit the Registry with proof of their identity. Massachusetts began using the software after receiving a $1.5 million grant from the US Department of Homeland Security as part of an effort to prevent terrorism, reduce fraud, and improve the reliability and accuracy of personal identification documents that states issue."

Comments

Guilty until proven innocent

[yincrash]

Kaprielian said the Registry gives drivers enough time to respond to the suspension letters and that it is the individual’s “burden’’ to clear up any confusion. She added that protecting the public far outweighs any inconvenience Gass or anyone else might experience. “A driver’s license is not a matter of civil rights. It’s not a right. It’s a privilege,’’ she said. “Yes, it is an inconvenience [to have to clear your name], but lots of people have their identities stolen, and that’s an inconvenience, too.’’

Re:Guilty until proven innocent

[alen]

someone got up on the wrong side of the keyboard today

Re:Guilty until proven innocent

[Dunbal]

You don't need a license to drive a car. You need a license to drive a car on a PUBLIC ROAD. You have an inherent right to drive. When you want to drive in a public place, you have to prove that you meet certain standards for the safety of other public road users (thus the driving test). A license is not a "gift" from the government, it is in fact a responsibility that the government has ensured you are a safe vehicle operator. Eventually this has turned into an additional source of revenue and now, apparently, a "privilege". Beware of people who say rights are privileges, they are the ones who would see you in chains.

Urg.

[geminidomino]

And I cut myself with my own rapier wit by messing up a quote tag and using the wrong homophone.

Coffee needs to brew faster...

Problem with face recognition

[sifi]

I was looking at facial recognition algorithms some while back, the problem is you get too many false positives.

The problem with all of these algorithms is that it doesn't matter how accurate they are, they are only ever going to be a way to reduce the search space - you should never base a decision solely on the algorithm telling you "this is person X".

For example, some sales person says "Hey I've got this great facial recognition software it is 99.99% accurate!" (that's better than most facial algorithms out there) sounds pretty good right! - Wrong!. Suppose you set it up to look for one terrorist at Heathrow airport. The system is likely to flag up 650 000 people a year (based on 65 million passengers a year); of course it gets even worse if you start looking for more people.