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Most iPhone users unlock their phones with a quick glance. Many of us have Ring video doorbells to see who鈥檚 outside when there鈥檚 a knock. We take for granted how Facebook knows every single person to tag in a posted photo. 

While this use of facial recognition technology is seemingly convenient鈥攁nd cool, like something in a science fiction movie鈥攖he industry is currently 

In this ever-evolving technological world, it is time for both grassroots solutions and federal regulation. Or, at the very least,  from the producers of the deeply problematic technology.

How Facial Recognition Fuels Racial Profiling

The most serious danger may be its use by law enforcement and how the lives of Black and Brown communities are subsequently being put at risk. If we don鈥檛 act swiftly, we may be in for a real-life episode of Black Mirror鈥攁 sci-fi TV show depicting the consequences of a high-tech future鈥攚ith communities of color at the center of the dystopia.

Here鈥檚 why: Black Americans are already  than White Americans to be arrested and locked up for minor crimes. As a result, Black people are overrepresented in mug shot data, which is used by facial recognition software to identify suspects accused of committing crimes. 

This ultimately creates a feed-forward loop where: 1. racial profiling by police leads to the disproportionate arrest of people of color; 2. facial recognition technology, in turn, uses arrest data (mug shots) borne from discrimination; and 3. that data continues to fuel more racial discrimination via surveillance of communities of color.

In a real-world example of the racist use of the technology, the city of  in 2016, installing cameras with facial recognition software to scoop up data from across the city and stream it directly to the police department. These PGL systems were disproportionately located in majority-Black areas, and reports show that the surveillance is linked to the criminalization of Black and Brown residents and subsequently . 

How the Technology Is Inherently Racist

Not only is the geographic placement of facial recognition technology by law enforcement blatantly racist; the software itself shows significant bias. A study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology called 鈥溾�� found that the software consistently had the most inaccurate results for people who are female, ages 18鈥�30, and Black. Specifically, the facial recognition software performs worse on darker-skinned women, with error rates of more than 40%, compared with White males. This is true across all platforms鈥攆rom IBM to Microsoft to Amazon鈥攁nd was . 

Another study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology found that the  and don鈥檛 work as well on children, the elderly, people of color, or women. In fact, error rates tend to be highest for Black women, just as the MIT study found. 

The Problematic History of Facial Recognition

The roots of facial recognition technology date back to the 1960s, when Woodrow Wilson Bledsoe began developing a . 

By 2001, law enforcement was using the technology on crowds entering the Super Bowl, comparing the faces of people who walked through the turnstiles to mug shots of known criminals. 

In 2014, Facebook unveiled its , and by 2017, Apple introduced its new iPhone X, which  as a way for people to unlock their devices. As per the , half of all American adults are in a law enforcement recognition network. So, if you鈥檙e sitting on a bus next to someone else, chances are one of you is in the system.

Over the past several years, major tech players like Amazon, IBM, and Microsoft have been  to law enforcement for mass surveillance. This  has served to enhance discriminatory practices by law enforcement and further endanger the lives of communities of color. 

How the Public Is Fighting Back

On the bright side, there has been serious  from privacy rights groups, the general public, , and some  against racial bias in the use of the technology. One creative protest consisted of  in patterns that make it impossible for their faces to be matched to a database. The idea was developed by , who coined the term 鈥渃omputer vision dazzle,鈥� meaning a modern form of the camouflage used in World War I by the Royal Navy. 

Responding to increasing public outrage, in June 2020, IBM, Microsoft, and Amazon said they would  to law enforcement agencies for a year. The year is now up, and , but the fight is far from over.

Meanwhile, cities like San Francisco, Oakland, Boston, and Portland, Oregon, have gone further than the private sector and  technology, with more  and  sure to follow suit. 

However, because there are currently no federal laws that regulate facial recognition technology, we are depending on piecemeal legislation in cities and states across the country鈥攁 flawed solution to a complicated problem. 

If the federal government does not step in and officially ban the technology that is disproportionately impacting the lives of Black and Brown communities, at the very least it must require that big-tech companies be transparent about the stark, racist biases in their algorithms. 

If not, the storylines on Black Mirror won鈥檛 be just fictitious.