Man made software in his own image

In 2002, a couple of Japanese visitors to Australia swapped passports with each other before walking through an automatic biometric border control gate being tested at Sydney airport. The facial recognition algorithm falsely matched each of them to the others' passport photo. These gentlemen were in fact part of an international aviation industry study group and were in the habit of trying to fool biometric systems then being trialed round the world. When I heard about this successful prank, I quipped that the algorithms were probably written by white people - because we think all Asians look the same. Colleagues thought I was making a typical sick joke, but actually I was half-serious.