British police forces are using AI crime prediction tools that disproportionately target Black and racialized communities, a new report from Amnesty International UK has revealed. According to Amnesty, nearly three-quarters of UK police forces rely on predictive policing, which uses past crime data to estimate where crimes might happen or who might commit them. The 120-page report, “Automated Racism – How Police Data and Algorithms Code Discrimination Into Policing,” argues that these predictive systems reinforce racial bias instead of improving public safety. “These systems have been built with discriminatory data
Hundreds of Americans have faced arrest after being linked to crimes by facial recognition software, according to a Washington Post investigation. However, the use of this technology is often not disclosed to defendants, depriving them of the opportunity to challenge its reliability in court. This finding is especially concerning for Black people who have been disproportionately subjected to wrongful arrests because of facial recognition tech. Lack of Transparency in Investigations The investigation found that police departments in 15 states used facial recognition in over 1,000 criminal cases over the last
A Black senior legal counsel at Workday, Anthony Hill, has filed a lawsuit against the tech company, claiming racial and disability discrimination after it sent police to his home for a “wellness check” during his medical leave. According to Business Insider, Hill, who was receiving treatment at a hospital at the time, felt the event was a distressing and unnecessary escalation. The lawsuit, filed in December 2023 in California’s Northern District Court, follows Hill’s claim that he informed his manager of a medical emergency on October 12, 2022. He provided
Randal Quran Reid spent almost a week in jail after Louisiana police wrongly identified him using facial recognition software. He has now filed a lawsuit against them. What Happened? Reid, 28, was driving to his mother’s house for Thanksgiving when local police pulled him over and arrested him. They had used facial recognition software, and the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office (JPSO) identified him as a suspect in a spate of thefts in Louisiana. Reid, however, had never set foot in Louisiana and was unaware of what Jefferson Parish was. There
A Georgia man spent almost a week in jail after Louisiana police wrongly identified him as a fugitive using facial recognition software. Randal Reid, 28, was driving to his mother’s home for Thanksgiving celebrations when local police pulled him over and arrested him, according to local news. Using facial recognition software, the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office (JPSO) had identified Reid as a suspect in a spate of thefts. $10,000 worth of Chanel and Louis Vuitton purses had been stolen. The problem? Reid had never set foot in Louisiana. “They told me
Bobbi Wilson experienced her first encounter with law enforcement at nine years old after her neighbor reported her to the police for playing outside with lanternflies. When Dr. Ijeoma Opara, a tenure track assistant professor at Yale, came across the story, she decided to reach out to Bobbi’s family. Bobbi Wilson’s Story On Oct 22, Wilson wandered outside her house with an anti-bug spray she had made after learning about invasive species on TikTok. Bobbi used the non-toxic solution to do her part in saving her local trees and the
Yesterday, JusticeText announced they had closed a $2.2 million seed funding round. The funding round led by Bloomberg Beta, True Ventures, and Reid Hoffman included investors John Legend and Michael Tubbs. JusticeText, co-founded by Devshi Mehrotra and Leslie Jones-Dove in 2019, is a software platform that aims to help build more transparency around criminal proceedings. The idea to develop JusticeText stemmed from a class project both Jones-Dove and Mehrotra worked on during their time at university. After witnessing the death of Trayvon Martin, both founders felt their system would be a more proactive solution to solving
Christian Smalls, primarily recognized as the brains behind the movement to unionize Amazon warehouse workers, was threatened by police in New York. Smalls, who Amazon infamously fired, led one of the first labor actions of the pandemic in 2020. After being fed up with the company’s unsafe practices, he decided to fight back, which put many workers’ lives at risk. So what happened? Earlier this week, workers at the warehouse in New York attempted to join the Amazon Labour Union. While organizing the rally at a fulfillment center bus stop,
A 62-year-old Kansas City resident has filed a lawsuit that claims that her white supervisor gave preferential treatment to younger, white employees with less experience and seniority. Over the past five years, Dethera Morris, alleges she has been singled out by upper managers, is frequently mocked and ridiculed behind her back, and is generally treated with disrespect because of her race and age. The employee also alleged she was frequently bullied by her direct boss in front of others and felt intimidated. The lawsuit was filed in Jackson County Circuit
People in the US city of New York are subject to “shocking” mass surveillance through facial recognition technology cameras, with the invasive technology especially trained on areas of the city with greater concentrations of non-white residents, new research by Amnesty International and partners has revealed today. The new analysis – published as part of a global Ban The Scan campaign – shows how the New York Police Department’s vast surveillance operation particularly affects people already targeted for stop-and-frisk across the city’s five boroughs. In the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens the research shows
