US officials train facial recognition tech with photos of dead people and immigrants, report claims

A unit of the U.S. Department of Commerce has been using photos of immigrants, abused children and dead people to train their facial recognition systems, a worrying new report has detailed. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) oversees a database, called the Facial Recognition Verification Testing program, that'depends' on these types of controversial images, according to Slate. Scientists from Dartmouth College, the University of Washington and Arizona State University discovered the practice and laid out their findings in new research set to be reviewed for publication later this year. A unit of the U.S. Department of Commerce has been using photos of immigrants, abused children and dead people to train their facial recognition systems, a new report has detailed. The Facial Recognition Verification Testing program was first established in 2017 as a way for companies, academic researchers and designers to evaluate their facial recognition technologies.