Open the eye! Asian has passport photo denied for algorithm error

Although technological advances have facilitated many everyday tasks, especially by automating some more repetitive processes, certain activities performed by robots or intelligent systems still fall far short of human work. An example of this is the fact that a New Zealand resident was denied his passport photo because he apparently had his eyes closed. The problem? The boy is Asian.

The case was published by Richard Lee on his Facebook profile earlier this week and showed that while face recognition features are revolutionizing the way photographic apps and equipment work, they are still "slightly biased." Nonetheless, Lee - who was born in Taiwan and currently studies in Melbourne, Australia - said he was not offended by the unsuccessful attempt to renew his documentation through the New Zealand government's online system.

It's high time this system was refined, isn't it?

In fact, he even seems used to this kind of situation, even if, in the image posted on the social network, his eyes are clearly open. "I have always had very small eyes and facial reading technology is relatively new and without much sophistication, " the Taiwanese softened as he commented in an interview with Reuters. Eventually, the junior engineer eventually managed to get one of his portraits accepted by the site - fortunately, before his attempts at the period were over.

What happened to Lee, however, is not an isolated case and is something that quite possibly has to get on the developers agenda. According to the Quartz report, many of the current facial recognition algorithms have a 20% error rate when analyzing Orientals' faces, understanding that they have their eyes closed. According to Time magazine, this kind of problem has existed since at least 2010, when the cameras of the time repeatedly indicated that Asians were flashing at the time of the click.

This kind of problem has existed since at least 2010

Will this theme be properly corrected within the next few years or will Orientals still have to suffer from this kind of annoyance? Have you ever experienced such a situation or seen it happen to an acquaintance of yours? Leave your comment below.