UK launched passport photo checker it knew would fail with dark skin

The UK government went ahead with a face-detection system for its passport photo checking service, despite knowing the technology failed to work well for people in some ethnic minorities. Face recognition technology has a record of failing to recognise people with certain skin tones. For example, Google had to apologise in 2015 when its photos app labelled a black couple as gorillas. Now, documents released by the Home Office this week show it was aware of problems with its website's passport photo checking service, but decided to use it regardless. "User research was carried out with a wide range of ethnic groups and did identify that people with very light or very dark skin found it difficult to provide an acceptable passport photograph," the department wrote in a document released in response to a freedom of information (FOI) request.