The city of Atlanta doesn’t use facial recognition — so why does Delta Airlines?

I recently made an inquiry with the City of Atlanta’s Mayor’s office as to the use of facial recognition software. I received the following reply on the Mayor’s behalf from the Atlanta Police Department

The Atlanta Police Department does not currently use nor the capability to perform facial recognition. As we do not have the capability nor sought the use of, we not have specific legislation design for or around facial recognition technology.

Delta Airlines, a company based in Atlanta, continues to promote the use of facial recognition software, and according to this wired article makes it difficult for citizens to opt out of its use.

There are several concerns with use of facial recognition technology, succinctly laid out by the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

Face recognition is a method of identifying or verifying the identity of an individual using their face. Face recognition systems can be used to identify people in photos, video, or in real-time. Law enforcement may also use mobile devices to identify people during police stops. 

But face recognition data can be prone to error, which can implicate people for crimes they haven’t committed. Facial recognition software is particularly bad at recognizing African Americans and other ethnic minorities, women, and young people, often misidentifying or failing to identify them, disparately impacting certain groups.

Additionally, face recognition has been used to target people engaging in protected speech. 

Electronic Frontier Foundation at https://www.eff.org/pages/face-recognition

So in other words, the technology has the potential for free assembly and privacy abuses and because the algorithms used are typically less accurate for people of color (POC), the potential abuses are multiplied.

There are on going dialogs (here is the U.S. House discussion on the impact on Civil Liberties) on when/how/if to deploy this technology.

Do me a favor? If you happen to fly Delta, or are a member of their frequent flyer programs, could you kindly ask for non-facial recognition check in? Then asking for more transparency on the use and audit of the software used would be an important step forward.