AI Expert Concerned ‘No Māori With Moko’ Used In DIA Facial Recognition Test Cleared Of Racial Bias
Sunday, 10 November 2024, 5:24 am
Article: RNZ
A facial recognition expert is rejecting an official test
that cleared a government system of racial
bias.
Internal Affairs got independent tests
done using selfies of about 150 New Zealanders, of the
facial recognition technology within its new online Identity
Check tool.
But AI, data and emerging tech ethicist Dr
Karaitiana Tairua said the tests were too
limited.
"I’m not convinced at the amount of people
that were used, I’m not convinced that they only used
Department of Internal Affairs staff who volunteered to
participate in it.
"No Māori with moko were
volunteered in this test."
The government aims to roll
out Identity Check widely to provide online access to public
services.
The testing by an accredited Australian lab
should have used 245 people at least, to be 95 percent
accurate.
While it only had 148 people in it, the test
report said "in the context of this evaluation looking at
fairness for different demographic groups, the sample size
was sufficient to undertake a comparative bias
analysis".
Of those tested, 61 percent were of
European or Asian ethnicity, and 39 percent were Māori or
Pasifika.
The system has to be able to catch impostors
trying to use it for false verifications. Tests of this
returned higher error rates for Māori and Pasifika which
the report said might be due to blur, or lighting, or
"shadows".
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"If there’s shade on a face which can
create an issue recognising a face, what happens when a
person has a moko on their face?" Tairua said.
"It’s
likely to also contribute to false negative matches" – that
is, the system treating a genuine selfie as if it were from
an impostor.
"It’s not clinical.
"I’m quite
certain if I submitted those numbers to a university or a
government research fund, I’d be declined because it
wouldn’t be scientific.
"I think what should happen,
is we should be using a trial of people from the community,
we need to recognise that not all Māori look the
same."
Internal Affairs should be further removed from
the testing process, due to its incentive to get Identity
Check spread around, while it might also be a problem that
an international testing lab might not appreciate the local
cultural nuances, Tairua said.
Internal Affairs said
the tests were "just one step the department is taking to
ensure that our technology works fairly for
everyone".
"DIA is committed to engaging and
collaborating further with Māori and the wider community
and intends to conduct further
studies."
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