
Innocent woman arrested in false-positive in facial recognition system in Brazil - gota
An innocent woman was arrested today (while working in an informal job without any personally identifiable documentation) in Rio de Janeiro. The automated facial recognition systems (FRS) identified her as another woman, wanted for murder - it turns out the actual criminal is _already in jail_ and the police organization operating the FRS wasn&#x27;t informed about it yet due to delays between the systems.<p>This is the second day of operation of the system, according to the press. However, a restricted version of the same FRS was used for 15 days during the Carnaval festivities with no alarming failures and reportedly resulted in a few arrests.<p>It has now been deployed in 25 locations in Copacabana. (Anedoctally, I live here and can&#x27;t tell you where they are - the equipment, cameras, etc. must be well hidden, or I&#x27;m terrible at spotting them).<p>Source, in Portuguese: 
&quot;Facial recognition fails in its second day and innocent woman confused with criminal is arrested&quot;
https:&#x2F;&#x2F;oglobo.globo.com&#x2F;rio&#x2F;reconhecimento-facial-falha-em-segundo-dia-mulher-inocente-confundida-com-criminosa-ja-presa-23798913<p>Related previous submission (with zero comments): https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=19074434
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drtillberg
And in other news, 25% of all stranger identifications by human eyewitnesses
also were found to be erroneous.[1]

[1] [https://californiainnocenceproject.org/issues-we-
face/eyewit...](https://californiainnocenceproject.org/issues-we-
face/eyewitness-identification/)

~~~
gota
I agree that automated systems applied to the same task will (eventually) beat
human performance by a lot, but there are 2 issues that make this less
relevant in this case.

The first is one relates to this application of facial recognition targeting
poor people. This woman had no documentation on her. I'd wager this is really
common in Brazil. How could she possibly prove she is _NOT_ the person the
software with 99.999..% accuracy says she is?

If the actual criminal wasn't already in jail, would she be set free in the
same day she was arrested?

The second issue is perhaps more universal to other automations, but certainly
potentializes the first one, dealing with _scale_. Human cops can't check
every person they see against the entire database of wanted people.

25% of false-positives from every cop is a hell of a lot less than 0.00001% of
an automated system when applied to every crowd, everywhere, all the time.

~~~
gtirloni
For the first issue, carry your documents. I've been taught that since I first
got my ID at 12yo.

My understanding is that the automation is to verify people who are needed by
law, right? They don't voluntarily hear a beep and go into the jail. There are
police officers that still have to arrest them and check their documents.

The situation is so bad in Rio that society simply will have to deal with any
deficiencies in the automated system. It will still be better than the current
reality.

The fact that police officers are probably not giving people of color enough
flexibility in situations like these is beyond the scope of the automation
system.

EDIT: Carrying your documents is not a popular opinion among the US audience,
I understand. Still, I find it very reasonable and I think the situation that
happened to this woman is being blown out of proportion.

~~~
droithomme
The US tries not to be a papers please police state where it's a crime not to
carry papers with you and present them on demand. We consider systems like
that to be totalitarian and despotic based on our past experiences observing
and waging war against hostile oppressive nations with such systems.

~~~
foofoo55
> We consider systems like that to be totalitarian

Who is "we"? Non-citizens of the USA are required to carry their immigration
status documents with them, [1] and checkpoints within the 100-mile border
zone (where 2/3 of the population lives [2]) are one place where they must be
presented. If you are a US citizen without proof, and are stopped, and the
official thinks you are lying, I believe you are going to have A Bad Day.

[1] [https://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights/immigrants-
right...](https://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights/immigrants-rights-and-
detention/your-rights-border-zone)

[2] [https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-
zone](https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone)

~~~
AdrianB1
Well, in most cases "we" means the permanent legal inhabitants, not tourists.
Legislation is not created by tourists.

~~~
facorreia
Permanent legal residents are required to carry their IDs.

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mikece
As long as biometrics alone are the basis for an arrest, we'll see more and
more of this. I'm curious what the accuracy score for the biometric source
"evidence" was on which she was arrested, and what the match score was between
her face and the source evidence.

~~~
gtirloni
She wasn't arrested. She was detained and taken to the police station and her
family brought her documents to prove she wasn't the other woman they were
after.

~~~
Retric
Being detained is in the same category as being arrested. She was forcibly
taken into custody only to be released without any form of compensation for
lost time.

In many countries people can be held for significant amounts of time without
being formally charged with any crime.

~~~
gtirloni
Similar category but very different outcomes, rights, etc.

[https://criminal-law.freeadvice.com/criminal-
law/arrests_and...](https://criminal-law.freeadvice.com/criminal-
law/arrests_and_searches/arrest-detention.htm)

~~~
typenil
You're making a pedantic argument and backing it up with a link specific to
the US court system. What the US supreme court says had no bearing in Brazil.

~~~
gtirloni
No, I'm not. The Brazilian supreme court says pretty much the same thing.

~~~
EForEndeavour
I feel you're missing the point entirely: to the person who was forcibly taken
into custody by police and likely didn't have a clear and confident
understanding of their rights (a fair assumption for the general populace, I'd
say), it doesn't matter what you call it.

~~~
gtirloni
Of course it's upsetting. I don't think anyone is making the case that it's
just a regular day and you shouldn't complain. The automation system needs to
improve, that's blatantly obvious. And the police officers need to learn to
work with it.

This is what happened (detention): "I was working and the police arrived. They
confounded me with someone else they were looking for and I had to go to the
police station and prove I wasn't that person. What a day".

Not this (arrest): ""I was working and the police arrived. They confounded me
with someone else they were looking for and I had to go to the police station
and prove I wasn't that person. They still didn't believe me and I'm in a jail
cell waiting for a judge to hear my case. I don't think I'll be home for a few
days".

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ainar-g
I severely dislike public facial recognition systems, but wouldn't it
basically be the same if a police officer mistook her for someone else based
on a sketch or a composite? The scale is obviously different though.

~~~
mikece
Human cops don't have implicit faith in the accuracy of their human
colleagues. But if a __COMPUTER __lists you as a biometric match for a person
of interest /suspect, then clearly you did _something_...

~~~
jolmg
Right. Many people believe that computers can't make mistakes. It might not be
true, but you'll still have a harder time convincing them that despite the
computer identifying you, the computer is mistaken.

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srameshc
Pardon my ignorance, but isn't this a human rights issue ? Can the UN or other
organizations not question the governments who are in such a rush to enforce
these system regardless of all the evidence that it isn't reliable yet.

~~~
mateus1
Yes it is.

But under the current authoritarian Brazilian president "human rights" has
been demonized.

Rio de Janeiro's Governor has advocated for snipers to shoot-to-kill people
identified as criminals in the favelas. It's horrible.

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meruru
I'm not concerned with false positives. That's something the legal system can
expect and handle properly. My issue with this kind of technology is the
potential for abuse by incumbent powers. What happens when the government
starts using this to track whistleblowers?

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sudoaza
In Brazil simply being preto can get you in trouble with military police, can
only imagine it has gotten much worse with bolzonaro

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magwa101
There's a first, wrong person apprehended

