Skip to Content
Artificial intelligence

New York’s mass face recognition trial on drivers has been a spectacular failure

April 8, 2019

Face recognition proved totally unable to identify the faces of drivers in the city, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The trial: An internal e-mail from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority seen by the WSJ included the details of the trial at the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge last year. Cameras attached to the bridge were supposed to capture and identify the faces of drivers through their windshields as they passed, matching them against government databases.

The results: But the document, from November of last year, says that the “initial period for the proof of concept testing at the RFK for facial recognition has been completed and failed with no faces (0%) being detected within acceptable parameters.” That’s no faces accurately identified. Oops. Despite the failure, more cameras are going to be positioned on other bridges and tunnels, according to a spokesperson.

Controversy: Face recognition is rightly controversial. As well as its potential as a tool for mass surveillance, it has been shown to misidentify non-white faces and women. Last week a letter by prominent AI researchers called on Amazon to stop selling its face recognition software to law enforcement. Lee Rowland, policy director at the New York Civil Liberties Union, told the WSJ that face recognition coupled with the gathering of drivers’ licence plate data “represents a sea change in our government’s ability to track us.”

Apart from that, the failure of the NYC trial so far also suggests that the technology is perhaps not quite as game-ready as some of its more bullish advocates would suggest.

Sign up here for our daily newsletter The Download to get your dose of the latest must-read news from the world of emerging tech.

Deep Dive

Artificial intelligence

This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI

The tool, called Nightshade, messes up training data in ways that could cause serious damage to image-generating AI models. 

Rogue superintelligence and merging with machines: Inside the mind of OpenAI’s chief scientist

An exclusive conversation with Ilya Sutskever on his fears for the future of AI and why they’ve made him change the focus of his life’s work.

Driving companywide efficiencies with AI

Advanced AI and ML capabilities revolutionize how administrative and operations tasks are done.

Generative AI deployment: Strategies for smooth scaling

Our global poll examines key decision points for putting AI to use in the enterprise.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.