Uber faces racism claim over facial recognition software

In this June 21, 2017, file photo a man walks into the building that houses the headquarters of Uber in San Francisco. 
Uber is facing a civil rights complaint over the termination of a black driver's account

Uber has been accused of discrimination by a black driver who said he was barred from the app because the facial recognition software did not recognise him. 

In a case filed under civil rights law, William Fambrough claimed he had been forced to lighten the images used to verify his identity when beginning a drive, which had led the company to deactivate his account.  

Uber verifies a driver's identity by asking for a selfie taken on their phone, to be sure they are the same person they have background-checked and cleared to drive

The real-time ID check randomly selects drivers to be verified, and asks them to take a selfie which is checked using Microsoft's Face API software. 

In Mr Fambrough's complaint, filed with a court in Missouri, USA, the Kansas City Uber driver states that he works "late nights" for Uber and the software struggled to identify him in "pitch darkness", forcing him to artificially lighten the photographs of himself. 

He says Uber told him that his photos were "fraudulent" and terminated his account earlier this month.

In documents filed with the court and seen by the Daily Telegraph, Mr Fambrough also says the company's action has left him with just $0.80 to his name and caused his migraines to escalate.

"Uber has not presented any evidence that anyone else other than me has used my account. My skin colour is the only answer for my deactivation and this suit is my only recourse for Uber's adverse action," the complaint says.

Mr Famborough said he uses an older phone with a low-pixel camera to drive for Uber, which may have contributed to the software's inability to recognise him.

He is claiming $227,000 in damages and is asking for his driver account to be reinstated. 

Cynthia Lee, a lecturer in computer science at Stanford University, and an advocate for more inclusive tech, said: "It shouldn't be surprising to anyone who is familiar with face recognition software that a black man would encounter an issue like this, and it's unfortunate that Uber apparently did not design their procedures to account for this entirely foreseeable situation."

The real-time ID check is a safety feature introduced in September 2016, which is designed to ensure that passengers are not put at risk by getting into cars driven by people who have not been cleared to drive. 

Microsoft's Face API is among facial recognition systems to have been criticised for having a much higher failure rate with black people and women due to a lack of images of non-white people being used to train the software. 

Last year a study found that the Microsoft Face API had an error rate of only 0.7pc for light skinned faces, but an error rate of 12.9pc for dark skinned faces, when predicting a person's gender.

Last June the company claimed to have made "significant improvements", reducing the error rates for people with darker skin by up to 20 times. 

Uber's Face ID system previously came under fire after transgender drivers had their accounts suspended when their pictures did not match ones on file. 

Uber declined to comment on pending litigation. 

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