Facial recognition misclassifies transgender and non-binary people, study finds
October 30, 2019Debates around facial recognition technology have continued to heat up — and it has even resulted in cities like San Francisco banning the tech’s use by local government. Now, a new study has confirmed yet another one of the technology’s shortcomings: facial recognition can’t classify transgender or non-binary people. As more government agencies and private companies explore facial recognition, the technology’s failures leave already vulnerable populations open to increased risk.
The study, conducted by Jed Brubaker, Jacob Paul, and Morgan Klaus Scheuerman from the University of Colorado Boulder’s Information Science department, tested popular face analysis services from Amazon, Clarifai, IBM, and Microsoft.