Researcher claims facial recognition can be ‘lethal’ for transgender community

Though facial recognition technology is being incorporated in a lot of things now, it still is faced by many problems such as enabling racial and gender bias. Adding to this, a researcher has recently said that facial recognition will be a nightmare for transgender people and can even get them killed.

In a recent interview with Venture Beat, AI researcher OS Keyesat from the University of Washington said that the deployment of facial recognition tech can lead to ‘nightmare scenarios’ for transgender people, even ending in lethal outcomes.

Keyes noted that some apartment buildings are now considering the use of facial recognition tech for entry where a resident would show their face and the system would recognize them and unlock the door. He even pointed out how some people are suggesting using facial recognition to monitor bathrooms as well.

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Keyes said that since some systems have trouble recognizing transgender or gender non-conforming people, they could be flagged, resulting in law enforcement being called upon to the scene, which could prove deadly for the trans people, specifically those of color, wrote Futurism.

“To be exceedingly deadpan,” Keyes said, “the police’s record with trans people of color is not great, so yeah — the worst case scenario is someone tries to go to the bathroom because they just want to piss and they end up shot or arrested or harassed, or shot and then arrested and then harassed.”

Furthermore, apart from badly affecting the trans community, Keyes also pointed out that the facial recognition tech doesn’t benefit any members of society enough to deserve further development.

“I would like to see facial recognition development and usage just made straight-up illegal because I don’t think this is a technology with redeeming features,” Keyes told Venture Beat. “Nobody has been able to point me to a use case that directly benefits humanity that can’t be solved with other means. It’s so obviously ripe for abuse and has already been [so] abused that it’s not worth doing.”