IBM: Withdrawal in face recognition

IBM: Withdrawal in face recognition

New York, 10.6.2020

IBM no longer sells face recognition or analysis software because of concerns about discrimination in law enforcement and in general. In a letter from IBM CEO Arvind Krishna to U.S. Congressmen, the company says it opposes the use of facial recognition for racial profiling, mass surveillance and „violations of fundamental human rights and freedoms. IBM asked lawmakers to initiate a dialogue on why the country’s law enforcement agencies use facial recognition, which studies would show is more likely to misidentify people of darker skin and other races than whites.

Krishna supports a new federal bill that would establish a national register of police misconduct and use techniques such as data analysis to increase police accountability.

Last year, IBM released its Diversity in Faces dataset to promote fairness and better train face recognition systems. But IBM Watson’s face recognition system had a 34.7% error rate in identifying dark-skinned women, compared to 0.3% for lighter-skinned men’s faces, according to 2018 research.