Vumacam accused of driving "AI-powered apartheid"
Private South African CCTV company Vumacam is driving an "AI-powered apartheid", according to Vice magazine. Vumacam installed over 5,000 AI-powered CCTV cameras across Johannesburg combined w ith tools such as license plate recognition to track population movements and identify "unusual behavior". But civil rights organisations argued Vumacam was violating privacy rights by surveilling citizens without consent. Fears were also expressed that the system's AI algorithms may have had built-in biases against people of colour, potentially leading to racial profiling. Critics worried the technology could reinforce existing racial inequalities in South Africa. At the time, Vumacam provided limited public information about the capabilities of its system and how it used collected data. Critics complained the rollout occurred with inadequate community consultation and engagement, and without any clear mechanisms for citizens to provide input or challenge the system's use. System 🤖 J ohannesburg SafeCity Operator: Vumatel/Vumacam Developer: Vumatel/Vumacam Country: South Africa Sector: Govt - police; Govt - security Purpose: Identify criminal suspects Technology: CCTV; Computer vision; Deep learning; Machine learning; Object recognition Issue: Bias/discrimination; Human/civil rights; Privacy; Surveillancece
- Date it happened
- 2018-11-01
- Organisation involved
- Vumatel/Vumacam
- Product, system or model
- Johannesburg SafeCity
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