# Facial Recognition Software Facial Recognition Software is a class of computer vision tools that identify people by their faces, and it turned into a recurring internet meme topic after a run of public bias incidents. The 2009 Nikon Racist Camera post and the 2015 Google Photos gorilla mislabel are the moments most often cited when the software gets dragged online. ## Overview Facial Recognition Software is a class of computer vision tools built to identify people by measuring features inside a still image or video frame[4]. Online, the topic became a repeat meme reference after a string of consumer product failures on non-white subjects, from a 2009 Nikon camera flagging an Asian user for blinking to Google Photos labeling Black users as gorillas in 2015[3][2]. The gap between Hollywood face matching and how the tech actually performs on messy real-world images turned into its own running joke[1]. Reporters and researchers keep circling the same accuracy problem. On a one-to-one check like matching a face to a company badge the software hits around 95 percent, but that number falls apart fast when comparing a single face against a big pool of possible matches, because the small error rate multiplies with every extra candidate[1]. ## How It Spread The meme angle kicked off on May 13th, 2009, when Taiwanese-American strategy consultant Joz Wang published a blog post titled "Racist Camera! No, I did not blink… I'm just Asian!" after her Nikon compact kept warning that she had blinked in a selfie. Gizmodo picked up the post and called out Nikon's lack of "tact" on race[3], and BoingBoing followed with its own writeup accusing the manufacturer of poor "racial sensitivity"[5]. On June 18th, 2012, Facebook acquired the Tel Aviv face-tagging startup Face.com, pushing the tech deeper into everyday photo apps[4]. NPR aired a segment on October 28th, 2013 in which University of Washington computer vision researcher Neeraj Kumar told reporter Martin Kaste the field was "nowhere close" to the Enemy of the State fantasy of pulling a name off a grainy security cam[1]. On June 28th, 2015, Twitter user @jackyalcine posted a screenshot of Google Photos automatically tagging a picture of an African American man and woman as "gorillas", pulling over 2,800 retweets and 1,400 favorites in the first week[2]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Facial Recognition Software? Software that identifies a person by measuring the geometry of their face in a photo or video frame[4]. ### Where did Facial Recognition Software come from? The earliest systems were built starting in 1964 by researchers Woody Bledsoe, Helen Chan and Charles Bisson, who mapped faces to lists of measured distances between markers[4]. ### What does Facial Recognition Software mean? Online the term became shorthand for algorithmic bias after very public failures on non-white subjects, from Joz Wang's 2009 Nikon "blink" alert[3] to Google Photos flagging Black users as "gorillas" in 2015[2]. ### How do you use Facial Recognition Software? As a meme reference it usually shows up in bias critiques or in jokes about how far consumer tools fall short of the movie version of instant face matches on grainy footage[1]. ### Is Facial Recognition Software still popular? The topic still surfaces in coverage of AI ethics and photo-app moderation, with the 2015 Google Photos incident regularly cited as a reference point[2]. ## References 1. [https://www.npr.org/transcripts/228181778?storyId=228181778]() 2. [https://twitter.com/jackyalcine]() 3. [https://gizmodo.com]() 4. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/facial-recognition-software]() 5. [https://boingboing.net]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/facial-recognition-software Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library