ATLANTA — The City of Atlanta is asking Google to address a report that it sent teams of third-party contractors to Atlanta to specifically target black people among the homeless population to collect their facial data.
The New York Daily News reported last week that Google had sent workers around the country to collect face scans, particularly from people of color, to enhance their facial recognition algorithm for the upcoming Pixel 4 phone.
Research has indicated facial recognition technology faces problems of bias in human programmers - translating into algorithms working better for white people.
In working to correct this, the Daily News reported Google resorted to underhanded tactics - promising gift cards and rushing participants through consent agreements - to entice vulnerable populations into providing their face scan without fully disclosing what it was for.
In one instance that reportedly included sending teams to Atlanta with instructions to "target darker skin people."
“They said to target homeless people because they’re the least likely to say anything to the media,” an anonymous worker told the newspaper. “The homeless people didn’t know what was going on at all.”
The report included a picture of people lined up around Woodruff Park downtown reportedly waiting to give facial scans.
The City of Atlanta has now officially asked Google to respond. In a letter to the company, City Attorney Nina Hickson asked for a "reasonable explanation" as to why the report would be inaccurate.
"The possibility that members of our most vulnerable populations are being exploited to advance your company's commercial interest is profoundly alarming for numerous reasons," Hickson wrote. "Our residents experiencing homelessness do not lose any of their constitutionally protected rights to dignity and respect as a consequence of being homeless."
The letter added that "if some or all of the reporting was accurate, we would welcome your response as what corrective action has been and will be taken."
Google responded to 11Alive's request for comment by issuing the same statement it provided the newspaper last week. That statement reads:
“We’re taking these claims seriously and investigating them. The allegations regarding truthfulness and consent are in violation of our requirements for volunteer research studies and the training that we provided."
Google also acknowledged it is building a face authentication feature in its upcoming phone, which it needs a diverse data set to make function. The company says it regularly conducts volunteer research field studies to develop features like this.
The third-party contractor whose employees conducted the facial scans was reported to be Randstad. Google acknowledged that company, which has offices in Atlanta, is participating in an investigation, while the research has been temporarily suspended.
Google said it had taken numerous steps to ensure consent would be respected and given only by fully-informed participants. It also said the data collected in this program was encrypted, safely stored and used only for research.
11Alive contacted Randstad for a statement, however, they declined to comment.
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