The increasing use of facial recognition by Law enforcement agencies

This little known AI startup is becoming a favorite of law enforcers around the world.

It was last year that the tech hub of San Francisco took the bold move of banning Facial Recognition by any of its 53 departments — in turn becoming the first city in the U.S to pass such a ban. Ever since that decision, many municipalities in the U.S have followed suit. This was a little strange considering Silicon Valley is much well-known to embrace technology than to regulate it or shun it completely like in this case.

But the move had some sound reasons behind it. Serious drawbacks were noted in the AI system being used to identify people — the algorithms employed turned out to be racially biased, especially when they attempted to identify women or people with darker tones, not to mention the invasive nature of the technology.

The European Commission is taking a tougher line on Artificial Intelligence (AI) than the United States, which would strengthen existing regulations on privacy and data rights, as reported by Reuters. According to a paper seen by the news agency, it suggests a temporary ban of five years on facial recognition to give enough time to EU regulators to address the abusive & nefarious use aspect of the futuristic…