The Trans Dataset Built Without Permission and Stored Improperly
CYBER
VICE
4 • 645 Ratings
🗓️ 5 January 2023
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Facial recognition technology is here. Whether we like it or not, cameras all across the world are scanning faces and building databases.
There’s a popular misconception that technology is objective and unbiased. But that’s not true. All systems carry the biases of the people who created them, and nowhere is that more evident than in facial recognition systems.
Today’s show is about how those biases come to bear, and the dangers of running recklessly forward without considering the consequences. All the way back in 2013, the University of North Carolina, Wilmington published a dataset meant for facial recognition systems. It contained more than 1 million images of trans people, pulled from YouTube, showing them at various stages of their transition.
This was done without the permission of the original posters. Why? Because terrorists might take hormones to alter their face and beat border control systems.
It gets weirder from there.
Here to help us tell the story is Os Keyes. Keyes is a researcher and PhD candidate at the University of Washington’s Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering. They’re also the co-author of Feeling fixes: Mess and emotion in algorithmic audits, which is a scientific audit of the dataset we’re going to be talking about today.
Stories discussed in this episode:
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Tadden, it's got the code. It's going to launch. |
| 0:11.4 | It's a unit system. I know this. |
| 0:15.7 | It's all the files of the whole park. It tells you everything. |
| 0:19.7 | Sir, he's uploading the virus. |
| 0:22.4 | Eagle one. The package is being delivered. |
| 0:25.2 | Hello out there on the internet. I am Matthew Galt, and this is Cyber. |
| 0:30.5 | 2023, baby. Let's do it. First stream and show of the year. It's all about facial recognition. |
| 0:37.1 | Facial recognition technology is here, |
| 0:39.4 | and whether we like it or not, cameras all across the world are scanning faces and building databases. |
| 0:44.3 | There's a popular misconception that technology is objective and unbiased. That's not true. All systems |
| 0:50.4 | carry the biases of the people who created them, and nowhere is that more true |
| 0:55.0 | than facial recognition systems. |
| 0:57.3 | And today shows about how those biases come to bear and the dangers of running recklessly |
| 1:01.8 | forward without considering the consequences. |
| 1:05.0 | All the way back in 2013, the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, published a |
| 1:09.2 | dataset meant for facial, meant for facial recognition systems. |
| 1:14.4 | It was more than one million images of trans people pulled from YouTube showing trans people at various stages of their transition. |
| 1:20.5 | This was done without permission from the original posters. |
| 1:23.8 | Well, why? |
| 1:24.9 | Because terrorists might one day take hormones to alter their face and be border control systems. |
| 1:30.8 | Story gets weirder from there. |
| 1:32.8 | Here to help us tell this story is Oz Keys. |
... |
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