[Infowarrior] - 20% false positive rate okay for FBI

[Richard Forno]

Facial Recognition Software That Returns Incorrect Results 20% Of The Time Is Good Enough For The FBI

from the 80%-of-the-time,-it-works-EVERY-time dept

When deploying technology that has the potential to put actual human beings behind bars, what should be the acceptable margin of error? Most human beings, especially those who haven't committed any crime due to their natural aversion to being housed with actual criminals, would prefer (as if they had a choice) this number to be as close to zero as humanly (and technologically) possible. 

The FBI, on the other hand, which possesses the technology and power to nudge people towards years of imprisonment, apparently feels a one-in-five chance of bagging the wrong man (or woman) is no reason to hold off on the implementation of facial recognition software. 

Documents acquired by EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Center) show the FBI rolled out a ton of new tech (under the name NGI -- "Next Generation Identification") with some very lax standards. While fingerprints are held to a more rigorous margin of error (5% max -- which is still a 1-in-20 "acceptable" failure rate), facial recognition is allowed much more leeway. (The TAR [True Acceptance Rate] details begin on page 247.)

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http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131010/07182224824/facial-recognition-software-that-returns-incorrect-results-20-time-is-good-enough-fbi.shtml

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