Numerous Patriots, Celtics, Red Sox And Bruins Players Falsely Identified As Criminals From Amazon’s Facial Recognition Technology
With technology comes great responsibility. Amazon apparently jumped the gun with their latest facial recognition technology that has confused about 30 famous Boston athletes as criminals.
Amazon’s facial recognition technology falsely matched nearly 30 professional athletes to individuals in a mugshot database, according to the Massachusetts chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
To perform the test, the ACLU of Massachusetts compared the official headshots of 188 New England athletes from the Boston Bruins, Boston Celtics, Boston Red Sox, and New England Patriots with a database of 20,000 public arrest photos. Nearly one-in-six athletes were falsely identified. An independent computer science expert verified the results.
In a statement provided by the ACLU, Duron Harmon called the technology “flawed” and said it should “not be used by the government without protections.”
Scary stuff. The average sports fan would probably be more accurate at identifying these athletes than Amazon’s Rekognition technology. They even got Celtics rookie Tacko Fall, who may be the most recognizable athlete in the NBA right now standing at 7 foot 6 inches. Amazon may want to put this tech back in the bag until they correct the issue before someone pays the price for something they didn’t do.
Here is the complete list of Falsely identified New England athletes.
New England Patriots
David Andrews
Adam Butler
Yodny Cajuste
Keionta Davis
Phillip Dorsett
Stephen Gostkowski
Duron Harmon
Jonathan Jones
Lance Kendricks
David Parry
Danny Shelton
Dan Skipper
James White
Isaiah Wynn
Boston Bruins
Sean Kuraly
Karson Kuhlman
Brad Marchand
John Moore
Joakim Nordstrom
Boston Red Sox
Heath Hembree
Steve Pearce
Chris Sale
Hector Velazquez
Christian Vazquez
Brandon Workman
Boston Celtics
Tacko Fall
Gordon Hayward
NEW: Amazon’s widely-used facial recognition technology falsely matched 28 New England professional athletes to individuals in a mugshot database.
Face surveillance is dangerous, no matter who you are. https://t.co/mr0WLnfD8Q #PressPause pic.twitter.com/04TL5vBOCz
— ACLU Massachusetts (@ACLU_Mass) October 21, 2019