Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Facial recognition is easily fooled. So when will our law enforcement stop using it? The polygraph is one example from history of technology barred from court.

Facial recognition is one of the latest hot technologies in law enforcement. Facial recognition software scans huge databases to identify a person at the scene of a crime. Viola’ Got the suspect, bring ’em in and so on.

Recent research shows that a quarter, yes, 25 cents, can buy glasses that not only mask my face from the software, but also trick the software into identifying someone else instead. And I can pick the celebrity that I want to be at the scene of the crime. Oh well.

Let’s step back in history to another law-enforcement technology that was going to solve all crimes for all mankind, i.e., the polygraph. Connect witnesses to the lie detecting machine and all would be wonderful. Well, that is until persons demonstrated that they could lie all day and the polygraph wouldn’t detect anything.

So, given recent demonstrations of the folly of facial recognition, how long will it be before our courts toss it and our law enforcement stop wasting time and money?