Using facial recognition software by police disproportionately targets people of color (Irinaa Ivanova 2020), is proven to be racially biased (Buolamwini and Raji 2019), exacerbates racism on campuses (Claire Galligan et al. 2020), has already led to wrongful arrest (Drew Harwell 2021), and creates a perpetual state of fear and surveillance for Black community members (Tawana Petty 2020). For these reasons and more, researchers have recommended banning facial recognition on university campuses (Future 2020). It has no place at Carnegie Mellon and their proposal to use facial recognition for their police force sets a dangerous precedent for other campus communities to follow suit.

Adding racially biased technology to CMU's network of 615 cameras for an already lethally-armed private police force increases the capacity for harm to everyone stepping foot on CMU property. Its intended use to aid criminal investigations only creates a harmful effect of using CMU’s private police force and racially biased technology to augment the Pittsburgh police, who cannot procure facial recognition technologies themselves following the passing of City Council legislation motivated by concern of racially biased technologies, including the Crimescan predictive policing software produced by CMU, and facial recognition technology (Juliette Rihl 2020).

The history of campus policing in Pittsburgh has already created a haven for violence against Black communities. The University of Pittsburgh quietly covered Pitt police officer Michael Rosfield’s abuse of power, allowing him to join the East Pittsburgh police, and fire three times into the back of unarmed 17 year old Antwon Rose II in June 2018 (Paula Reed Ward 2019). Duquesne University police caused the death of student Jaylen Brown in October 2018, with very little transparency and accountability to his grieving mother, Danielle Brown, who had to undertake a months-long hunger strike to be heard by the university (Sykes 2020). The legacy of racism in policing has resulted in police violence on countless more Black community members - from Romir Talley, Leon Ford, Jim Rogers, Jonny Gammage, and the countless other Black men unjustly murdered if not maimed by local police.

The presence of fully armed police on campus has also been a threatening presence for student free speech, while the safety need for augmenting that lethality appears unneeded according to recent annual reports that show just 8 use of force reports between 2018 and 2020 (CMU Police Department 2020). Instituting facial recognition as a collaboration with Pittsburgh Police represents a major escalation in policing on a campus where the majority of calls to police are for locked doors, and the most egregious of incidents around campus are nonviolent petty thefts. It is also worth noting that reports for years 2021 and 2022 are missing on CMU Police’s website. Altogether, there is a strong need to reconsider this policy in addition to having lethally armed police, particularly as campus cops have already caused harm to students and community in the PIttsburgh community. Carnegie Mellon can set a different kind of precedent by doing so.

Following the summer of 2020, when 3,573 signatories asked CMU to confront racist policing in our community, President Jahanian released a letter July 2, 2020 with several commitments to the CMU Community, proclaiming:

“The Carnegie Mellon University community stands unequivocally against racism and the systems that have perpetuated racial injustice. We support those exercising their right to protest for the protection of the historically marginalized and to speak out against senseless brutality at the hands of police. We join them in proclaiming that Black Lives Matter.”

Were these statements just empty postures to save face? It is a horrible wake-up call to see that Carnegie Mellon now intends to implement facial recognition for its police, having learned nothing about its role in creating and perpetuating systemic racism and its violent impacts of policing and incarceration, or never having had the desire to implement institutional change. Additionally, CMU provided a statement on its intent to NOT use facial recognition technology as part of the Fight for the Future campaign, and this also represents another breach in its commitments. By breaking this pledge, CMU and Pittsburgh will fall behind: universities like MIT, Harvard and Stanford, and tech-oriented cities like Cambridge and San Francisco have all pledged not to use facial recognition, or even outright banned it.

Students, staff, faculty and community members deserve to visit campus without being tracked and surveilled constantly. Carnegie Mellon must take action and remove the proposed "Facial Recognition Software Systems" in the "Video Surveillance Security Policy." Further, it should allow student government bodies to pass a resolution banning recognition technology for campus policing as well as the use of campus spyware and experimentation on campus to which campus community never consented to.

Thank you.

Signed,

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Sources:

Buolamwini, Joy, and Inioluwa Deborah Raji. 2019. “Actionable Auditing: Investigating the Impact of Publicly Naming Biased Performance Results of Commercial AI Products.” https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/123456.

Claire Galligan, Hannah Rosenfeld, Molly Kleinman, and Shobita Parthasarathy. 2020. “Cameras in the Classroom: Facial Recognition Technology in Schools | Science, Technology and Public Policy (STPP).” University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy. https://stpp.fordschool.umich.edu/research/research-report/cameras-classroom-facial-recognition-technology-schools.

CMU Police Department. 2020. “Carnegie Mellon University Police Department 2020 Annual Report.” Carnegie Mellon University.

Drew Harwell. 2021. “Wrongfully Arrested Man Sues Detroit Police over False Facial Recognition Match.” Washington Post, April 13, 2021. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/04/13/facial-recognition-false-arrest-lawsuit/.

Future, Fight for the. 2020. “An Open Letter From Faculty and Staff Against Campus Facial Recognition.” OneZero (blog). February 28, 2020. https://onezero.medium.com/an-open-letter-from-faculty-and-staff-against-campus-facial-recognition-5ee5cf47cdc6.

Irinaa Ivanova. 2020. “Why Face-Recognition Technology Has a Bias Problem.” CBS News, June 12, 2020. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facial-recognition-systems-racism-protests-police-bias/.

Juliette Rihl. 2020. “Pittsburgh Council Votes to Regulate Facial Recognition, Predictive Policing.” Public Source, September 22, 2020. https://www.publicsource.org/pittsburgh-city-council-vote-regulate-facial-recognition/.

Paula Reed Ward. 2019. “University of Pittsburgh Says No Basis for Suit by Antwon Rose’s Parents | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 14, 2019. https://www.post-gazette.com/news/crime-courts/2019/01/14/University-of-Pittsburgh-Antwon-Rose-II-Michael-Rosfeld-lawsuit-police-homicide/stories/201901140104.

Sykes, Katelyn. 2020. “Protesters Join Mother of Duquesne University Student and Demand Answers into His Death.” WTAE. July 12, 2020. https://www.wtae.com/article/protesters-join-mother-of-duquesne-university-student-and-demand-answers-into-his-death/33285369.

Tawana Petty. 2020. “Safe or Just Surveilled?: Tawana Petty on the Fight Against Facial Recognition Surveillance.” Logic Magazine, May 4, 2020. https://logicmag.io/security/safe-or-just-surveilled-tawana-petty-on-facial-recognition/.