Axon, a major police body-worn camera maker, says no to facial recognition tech in its devices taking ethics advisory panel’s advice

Facial recognition is a contentious technology, to say the least, these days. Yesterday, Axon Enterprises formerly known as Taser International, the largest police body-camera making company in the US announced that it will not incorporate facial-recognition technology in its law-enforcement devices.

This move coincides with growing public opposition to facial recognition technology, including from tech workers with some cities in the US mulling to ban its use. Last month, San Francisco became the first city to ban local government use of facial recognition, with Oakland, California, Somerville and Massachusetts, expected to enact similar legislation soon. California’s state Legislature is also considering bill that would ban the use of facial recognition on police body cameras.

Axon came to this decision after reviewing a report published by its ethics advisory panel. The panel urged the company not to pair its best-selling body cameras with software that could allow officers to identify people in real time based on their faces.

Last year in April, Axon established an AI and Policing Technology Ethics Board. The purpose of the board was to guide and advise the company on ethical issues related to the development and deployment of new artificial intelligence (AI) powered policing technologies. They would advise the company on products which are under consideration or development, and would not formally approve or reject any particular product.

This is the first board report that provides thoughtful and actionable recommendations to Axon regarding face recognition technology.

The board is an eleven-member external advisory body made up of experts from various fields including AI, computer science, privacy, law enforcement, civil liberties, and public policy. The company also emphasizes on the importance of having a diverse board for the guidance. The current board members are:

• Ali Farhadi, an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington
• Barry Friedman, an academic and one of the leading authorities on constitutional law, policing, criminal procedure, and federal courts
• Christy E. Lopez, a Georgetown Law Distinguished Visitor from Practice and former Deputy Chief in the DOJ Civil Rights Division
• Jeremy Gillula, Tech Projects Director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Jim Bueermann President of the Police Foundation in Washington, DC
• Kathleen M. O’Toole, former Chief of Police for the Seattle Police Department
• Mecole Jordan, Executive Director at United Congress of Community and Religious Organization (UCCRO)
• Miles Brundage, AI Policy Research Fellow with the Strategic AI Research Center at FHI
• Tracy Ann Kosa, Senior Program Manager at Google
• Vera Bumpers, President at National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE)
• Walt McNeil, a Leon County Sheriff in Florida

Here are few tweets from some of the board members as well.

The members of the board cited facial recognition tech’s accuracy problems, that it could lead to false identifications, particularly of women and people with dark skin. The technology also could lead to expanded government surveillance and intrusive police activity, the board said.

More specifically, the findings of the report are as follows:

1. [box type=”shadow” align=”” class=”” width=””]Facial recognition simply isn’t good enough right now for it to be used ethically.
2. Don’t talk about “accuracy,” talk about specific false negatives and positives, since those are more revealing and relevant.
3. Any facial recognition model that is used shouldn’t be overly customizable, or it will open up the possibility of abuse.
4. Any application of facial recognition should only be initiated with the consent and input of those it will affect.
5. Until there is strong evidence that these programs provide real benefits, there should be no discussion of use.
6. Facial recognition technologies do not exist, nor will they be used, in a political or ethical vacuum, so consider the real world when developing or deploying them.[/box]

In a blog post on Axon’s website, CEO Rick Smith said current facial recognition technology “raises serious ethical concerns.” But Smith also said that his team of artificial intelligence researchers would “continue to evaluate the state of facial recognition technologies,” leaving open the possibility of adding the software to body cameras in the future.

Axon holds the largest market share among the body cam manufacturer in the United States; it  supplies cameras to 47 of the 60 biggest police agencies. However, it does not say how many police agencies are under the contract, but says that more than 200,000 of its cameras are in use around the country.

As per reports from NBC, this move from Axon is appreciated by civil rights and privacy advocates ─ but with skepticism. They noted that real-time facial recognition on police body cameras is not considered feasible at the moment, and they expressed concern that Axon could reverse course once that changed.

“This is ultimately an issue about the kind of society we want to live in, not about technical specs,” said Harlan Yu, executive director of Upturn, which monitors police agencies’ body camera policies, and who is an outspoken Axon critic.

Rather than rely on pledges from technology companies, lawmakers should impose regulations on how facial recognition is used, the advocates said.

“Axon leaves open the possibility that it may include face recognition in the future, which is why we need federal and state laws ─ like the current proposal in California ─ that would ban the use of facial recognition on body cameras altogether,” said Jennifer Lynch, surveillance litigation director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties nonprofit.

Brendan Klare, CEO of Rank One Computing, whose facial recognition software is used by many police departments to identify people in still images, said to NBC that Axon’s announcement is a way to make the company look good while making little substantive impact.

“The more important thing to point out here is that face recognition on body cameras really isn’t technically feasible right now anyways,” Klare said.

While Axon has very little to lose from its announcement, other players in this industry took this as an opportunity. A couple hours after Axon’s announcement, the head of U.K. based company Digital Barriers, trying to break into the U.S. body camera market with its facial recognition-enabled devices ─ tweeted that Axon’s move was good news for his company.

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