Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib has advised Detroit’s chief of police to hire only black analysts to run facial recognition software because 'non-African Americans think African Americans all look the same'.

The Democratic Representative offered her two cents during a tour of the Real Time Crime Center in Detroit on Monday, refueling a controversy she started in August when she shared an incendiary tweet slamming facial recognition software as 'bulls**t.

She was invited by police officials to tour the Public Safety Headquarters and see for herself how Detroit uses the software with Police Chief James Craig this week, where she dropped her suggestion.

'Analysts need to be African Americans, not people that are not,' Tlaib said to Craig, who is black. 'I think non-African Americans think African Americans all look the same.'

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Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib has advised Detroit’s chief of police to hire only black analysts to run facial recognition software on Monday because 'non-African Americans think African Americans all look the same'

In the hour-long tour of the office she raised concern that the technology misidentifies a disproportionate number of darker-skinned people saying the software has a 60% error rate because it doesn’t identify black people. Tlaib and Craig pictured above Monday

Despite her suggestion to only hire black analysts, Craig refused to listen saying, 'I trust people who are trained, regardless of race; regardless of gender. It’s about the training'

In the hour-long tour of the office she raised concern that the technology misidentifies a disproportionate number of darker-skinned people.

'I’ve seen it even on the House floor: People calling Elijah Cummings "John Lewis," and John Lewis "Elijah Cummings," and they’re totally different people,' Tlaib said according to The Detroit News, referring to the two black Democratic congressmen.

'I see it all the time, and I love them because they go along with it,' she added.

But Craig shut her down saying: 'I trust people who are trained, regardless of race; regardless of gender. It’s about the training.'

'I know. But it does make a huge difference with the analysts,' Tlaib replied.

When asked if she meant that white people weren't qualified to work in the crime center, she said, 'No, I think there’s actually been studies out that it’s hard for, you know, like African Americans would identify African Americans, similar, Latino same thing.'

When asked by reporters if that would mean African American people shouldn't identify white people she said, 'Look it up' and walked away.

IBM, MICROSOFT SHOWN TO HAVE RACIST AND SEXIST AI SYSTEMS In a 2018 study titled Gender Shades, a team of researchers discovered that popular facial recognition services from Microsoft, IBM and Face++ can discriminate based on gender and race. The data set was made up of 1,270 photos of parliamentarians from three African nations and three Nordic countries where women held positions. The faces were selected to represent a broad range of human skin tones, using a labelling system developed by dermatologists, called the Fitzpatrick scale. All three services worked better on white, male faces and had the highest error rates on dark-skinned males and females. Microsoft was unable to detect darker-skinned females 21% of the time, while IBM and Face++ wouldn't work on darker-skinned females in roughly 35% of cases. In a 2018 study titled Gender Shades, a team of researchers discovered that popular facial recognition services from Microsoft, IBM and Face++ can discriminate based on gender and race Advertisement

The Detroit Police Department invited Tlaib back in August after she described facial recognition technology as 'bulls**t'

In the spat Craig tied to demonstrate the facial recognition technology process, showing a photo of an African American woman whose mugshot was mistakenly flagged after a picture of a black male shooting suspect was fed into the computer.

As he tried to explain the next steps Tlaib cut in and said: 'We know it’s close to a 60% error rate because it doesn’t identify black people; you know that, Chief. Chief, the error rate among African Americans, especially women, 60%.'

'I understand the technology. That’s why I’m taking you through it personally,' the police chief responded.

'I know, just see if you can get some of our money back before we fix it,' she quipped.

'No,' Craig replied.

When she asked if the software was the sole evidence used to bring charges against a suspect, Craig said no, adding 'a match is a tool only'.

The Detroit City Council in July 2017 unanimously approved $1 million to purchase the facial recognition software in a contract that expires next year. The Detroit Board of Police Commissioners approved a policy governing the software on September 19 after months of debate over its effectiveness

HOW DOES FACIAL RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGY WORK? Facial recognition software works by matching real time images to a previous photograph of a person. Each face has approximately 80 unique nodal points across the eyes, nose, cheeks and mouth which distinguish one person from another. A digital video camera measures the distance between various points on the human face, such as the width of the nose, depth of the eye sockets, distance between the eyes and shape of the jawline. A different smart surveillance system (pictured) can scan 2 billion faces within seconds has been revealed in China. The system connects to millions of CCTV cameras and uses artificial intelligence to pick out targets. The military is working on applying a similar version of this with AI to track people across the country This produces a unique numerical code that can then be linked with a matching code gleaned from a previous photograph. A facial recognition system used by officials in China connects to millions of CCTV cameras and uses artificial intelligence to pick out targets. Experts believe that facial recognition technology will soon overtake fingerprint technology as the most effective way to identify people. Advertisement

On Tuesday Tlaib’s spokesman Denzel McCampbell shared a link to study by Memorial University of Newfoundland psychology professors that suggested people using facial recognition technology more accurately identify members of their own race.

Craig says several staff members, black and white, were outraged and offended by Tlaib's remarks.

'It’s insulting. We have a diverse group of crime analysts, and what she said — that non-whites should not work in that capacity because they think all black people look alike — is a slap in the face to all the men and women in the crime center.'

He added that all officers and civilian employees go through mandatory implicit bias training.

'That’s something we train for, and it’s valuable training, but to say people should be barred from working somewhere because of their skin color? That’s racist.'

The Detroit Police Department invited Tlaib back in August after she described facial recognition technology as 'bulls**t'

The Detroit City Council in July 2017 unanimously approved $1 million to purchase the facial recognition software in a contract that expires next year.

The Detroit Board of Police Commissioners approved a policy governing the software on September 19 after months of debate over the effectiveness of it, particularly in identifying suspects of darker skin color.