Facial Recognition: for Business and Society, What Is the Promise and Peril?
BY johnsurico July 25, 2019Facial recognition: those two words can conjure up extremes in our imagination. One is a future where your specific smile will effortlessly open doors and devices for you. The other is where your every movement is tracked by cameras, with the data routed to unknown companies—and authorities. In an increasingly connected world, facial-recognition software could potentially supercharge the rise of surveillance capitalism, in which our words and actions are harvested to feed the algorithms of advertising and marketing. As a result, it represents one of the next great debates about technology and privacy. In other words: now that iPhones can open by scanning your face, imagine what comes next. Corporations have clearly taken notice of the opportunities, charging full steam ahead with software that will monitor and influence our everyday interactions, both as citizens and consumers. So how can this technology be used in smart and strategic ways, with benefits to individuals and society? And what are the insidious risks? Those questions were up for debate Wednesday in a panel discussion at NYU’s Center for Urban Science and Progress, organized by the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. The most visible manifestations of the facial-recognition revolution are the security cameras bristling from our buildings and lamp posts. New York City reportedly has more than 18,000 cameras watching the city’s 8.5 million residents and tens of millions of visitors. Imagery from those cameras help the New York City Police Department (NYPD) track down alleged criminals in an “investigative-driven” format, said Assistant Chief Jason Wilcox, who works in the department’s Detective Bureau. If photographs are taken by the victim, or by a surveillance camera—say during an assault on the subway— the department will try to match the facial features with photos already in the NYPD’s massive database from prior arrests. “When they [run] the technology, and get a match, and it comes back to a person that has been arrested,” he explained, it’s a lead to be used in building a case, but not yet probably cause for arrest. “So we give it back to the investigator we got it from, and now we say, ‘Okay, now you have to go do your work, and make a proper identification, and make an arrest.’” Speakers at the panel discussion in Brooklyn, moderated by Tyler Woods, at far right (Photo courtesy of Downtown Brooklyn Partnership) Wilcox asserted that the department does not use cameras en masse, a la Minority Report, to pinpoint who is wanted on the streets of New York City. A reason to investigate must first be in place, before the department activates the software. (Research has found that the technology has allowed for detectives to make at least 2,900 arrests in over five years of usage.) In terms of pro-and-con impacts, “The bottom-line pro, the way we apply it, is to make New York City safer. And we do it fairly, and responsibly,” Wilcox said. “The cons, the concerns, are the things that we steer away from: the mass viewing, the people walking down the street, trying to identify, profiling, or anything like that. That is not what we use it for." With this in mind, Noah Levenson, an artist and technologist in residence at the Mozilla Foundation, said the software has dramatic implications for the future of marketing. “Smart ads” have already popped up in Europe, he said. People passing a billboard in Oslo, Norway, were scanned to identify their gender; women were shown a salad, while men were shown a sausage pizza. But it goes beyond merely identification: emotion recognition, he said, is the next frontier for researchers, and companies. “So is this person happy? Are they angry? Are they drunk? Are they on illegal drugs? Are they mentally ill? Will we eventually be able to learn something about the human face such that we can predict when someone's about to commit a crime, without knowing anything else about them?” he asked. “These are some of the things that are coming next. And I mostly look at how this stuff is going to wind up in consumer products, and household applications.” Levenson cited Snapchat as an example. In 2018, the social-media platform’s patent was approved by the U.S. government to use facial recognition software in detecting mood at certain places. What does that mean for users? That out of the bazillions of selfies taken per day, Snapchat will soon be able to match your expression to your geolocation, thereby understanding how you feel at a particular place and time. “Then they're going to sell that data to the organizers of public events, concert promoters, or organizers of political rallies, talks, meetups,” he said. “And whoever else, we don't know.” And this software can be used on the backend of capitalism, too, Levenson said. Major companies like Unilever and Goldman Sachs have begun to incorporate facial recognition software into employee recruitment. By analyzing features like body language, tone, and key words that the company can enter into the system, AI can help do the work of finding the “ideal candidate,” goes the thinking. But, of course, all this potential is not without peril, according to those who worry about the technology overstepping its bounds. Jonathan Stribling-Uss, a technologist fellow at the New York City chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), flagged particular worries that his organization had with the dragnet capabilities of the NYPD and other government agencies. He mentioned a recent story about how the police put a photo of Woody Harrelson through its software to track a suspected beer thief, after the fuzzy security-camera photo came up with no match, but to human eyes the suspect looked a lot like the actor. (Wilcox contended that this was not standard protocol.) In the future, would the faces of an audience like the one at Wednesday’s panel discussion be scanned to find out names, addresses—and emotions? (Photo courtesy of Downtown Brooklyn Partnership) “I think it's important for people to understand that this is something that's happening right now,” Stribling-Uss said. He then asked the audience to raise their hand if they were taught not to give out their name to strangers when they were children. “Unfortunately that's what facial recognition dragnets do: they give out name and address by default ... and this is what we're seeing happening with law enforcement.” This concern, he said, has led to bans of facial recognition software in such cities as Oakland, Calif., and Somerville, Mass. Stribling-Uss said the scenarios that keeps privacy advocates up at night is something akin to the social-credit system arising in China, where citizens are tracked and punished with bans on travel or other activities based on social taboos they have committed, like not paying their debts. “I think we're coming closer to that,” he argued. Prospectively, “people can be tracked and banned on the basis of characteristics they can't change.” Facial recognition is also not without its vulnerabilities. While machine learning is constantly improving, it’s important to be cognizant of its limitations, said Nasir Memon, a professor of computer science at NYU Tandon School of Engineering. Sure, you might be able to have your front door open for you one day, or have a coffee bought at your local cafe without pulling out your wallet, but things can go wrong. Memon outlined four ways that pattern recognition—which is what the software ultimately is, he said—can be hacked: through a mask, or spoofed appearance; through understanding the model’s loopholes; through a picture; or through a “master face,” like the universal key that has been used to fool fingerprint-scanning software, he said. “So what has to counter all of these possibilities? And they'll always be there: security is a cat-and-mouse game,” he explained. “But the danger, I think, is to anonymity.” A citizen should have the right to stay anonymous, if they choose to, said Memon, whether it’s Snapchat scanning our selfies for marketing purposes, or governments using cameras for surveillance purposes. Without that ability, dissent can be discouraged, he added, which harms the health of one’s freedom and society overall. “It's how we evolve our society,” he said. “And if everybody is recognized everywhere all the time, you have a problem.” John Surico is a freelance journalist and researcher, based in New York City. His reporting has appeared in the New York Times, VICE, and a number of other local and national publications
What It Takes for Inclusion to Be More Than a Buzzword
BY johnsurico June 27, 2019At this point in the evolution of Corporate America, almost nobody questions the importance of diversity and inclusion. Studies have repeatedly shown that companies that rank in the upper quartile for gender and racial diversity are more likely to see greater returns than the industry average. Not only that, but companies with greater inclusion are linked with higher degrees of productivity and innovation. But inclusion isn’t necessarily easy to achieve. Unlike diversity, which can be measured in numbers, inclusion is less tangible. It’s partly a feeling of belonging, of one’s voice being heard. “We very much view it as everyone has an opportunity to be a valuable player of the team. But we also want to make sure that once you're on that team, you have equal access and opportunity to advance the game,” said Lauren Lopez, using a sports metaphor perhaps inspired by her role as global senior director of human resources for the National Basketball Association. Lopez was among the speakers on a panel entitled “New Frontiers of Inclusion” at the From Day One conference June 19 in Brooklyn, where the panelists explored aspects of inclusion ranging from the wage gap to technology. Among the highlights: Artificial intelligence is among the tech tools that help build a diverse workforce, said the NBA’s Lopez Inclusive Leadership Marisa Grimes, the director of inclusion and diversity at Mastercard, said that inclusion starts with leadership. Employees who step into leadership roles must see inclusion as yet another skill set to craft, just like building business acumen and executive presence. “When we talk about what an inclusive leader looks like, we think about it in terms of someone who can build and maintain diverse teams,” Grimes said. “That's something that all of our leaders need to be able to do.” To foster that growth, Grimes said her team has begun embedding inclusion in the leadership-development program. It has also trickled down into hiring practices. “We look for things like people who are intellectually curious; people who have an open mindset; people who demonstrate that they have self-awareness.” IQ and EQ, she said, are as important as “DQ,” or a “decency quotient.” “Again, we see this as a muscle that needs to be exercised. It needs to be developed, and it needs to be maintained,” she added. Jazmine Boatman, the general manager of New York operations at DDI, a leadership consulting firm, said that inclusion means “a leader who brings out the best in people.” That, she explained, is someone who creates a work environment where perspectives and feedback are welcome. With that in mind, her firm, which specializes in talent management, focuses on interpersonal and communication skills. In hiring, leaders need to beware of “Mini-Me syndrome,” she said, in which recruiters look for people who went to the same school, for example, or have the same work experience. “When we think about, from a business perspective, what we're competing against,” she said, “we're going to need more variety of perspectives in order to understand our customers, who ideally are getting more and more diverse.” Equal Access to Benefits For Tammy Sun, the co-founder of Carrot, a startup which helps companies develop fertility plans for employees, the service itself—accessing fertility care—informs her idea of inclusion. “For us, we think about ‘What does the modern workplace mean?’ and ‘What does the future of work mean when we think about families and how we define families?’” That has inspired training in health care and fertility care for transgender clients, Sun said, and thinking about how different countries can perceive fertility care. “We think about inclusion from the perspective of equal access for everyone for fertility care,” she said. “In our world, we built a platform and program to try to offer that access.” Emma Hinchliffe, an associate editor at Fortune who moderated the panel, asked Sun about her perspective as a company founder. “What are the challenges of working on inclusion at a smaller company versus a large global company?” she asked. Carrot was launched with an inclusive nature, Sun said. More than half of the employees are female, and her co-founders are both male and female, from different work backgrounds. With a smaller size, the company is nimble in identifying issues—and trying to fix them. “Because of the way we operate the business and the leadership styles that are brought to the table, we have seen our company grow in a very diverse and interesting way across every single sector: age, sexual orientation, gender,” she said. In hiring, Mastercard looks for “people who are intellectually curious; people who have an open mindset,” said Grimes Tech for Inclusion Increasingly, new tech tools have emerged to help companies foster more inclusion in their workplaces. At the NBA, artificial intelligence has made strides in the recruitment space, with better systems to eliminate hiring biases by covering up last names on applications, and singling out skill sets and experiences needed to do a specific job. “I'm really supportive of that, not only as someone who has recruited for years, but also a Latina female, who has had similar struggles in terms of getting interviews, or applying to roles and not hearing back,” she said. “It's important [for recruiters] to be able to stick to what you need to know.” Lopez said that when her job was focused on recruiting talent, she placed less emphasis on formal education, and more on life experience. Utilizing AI to foster that approach, she said, is a huge help. At DDI, Boatman said her team is exploring virtual reality as a way to expose employees to situations they may not be familiar with. “You can put yourself in the experience of someone who is excluded from a meeting, where you're not being heard, people keep talking over you, and there's verbal and non-verbal cues,” she said. “You're actually at the table as that person, and see that experience.” The reactions afterward, she said, have been “really powerful.” They help break down barriers for people who may have trouble understanding inclusion as an abstract concept. “Everyone had a similar experience, so we can talk about how that made you feel,” she said. The Wage Gap Hinchliffe asked the panelists how the gender wage gap intersects with inclusion. Sun said that a benefit like fertility care becomes part of the wage gap, “when you think about who has access and who doesn't,” she said. “If you don't have that access at work as a fundamental part of your health-care coverage, that means that you are paying for it somewhere else.” Sun said she had to pay $40,000 herself to freeze her eggs—an experience that inspired her to start Carrot. The NBA’s Lopez said she hopes that going forward, employers focus more on the entire life cycle of an employee. If companies want their employees to be more worldly and a valuable team asset, she said, they have to think about student loan debt that may be preventing employees from traveling. Or paying for quality day care, she added, so employees can show up “with a clear mind day-to-day to do your job.” “Those are the things that I think are extremely important for inclusion,” she concluded. When companies leave them out of the picture, “they lead to the inequality we see in work.” In a following session, Ellie Bertani, senior director of learning strategy and innovation for Walmart, talked with Rachel Carlson, CEO of Guild Education, about how companies like Walmart are combating the student-debt crisis with new education programs. John Surico is a freelance journalist and researcher, based in New York City. His reporting has appeared in the New York Times, VICE, and a number of other local and national publications