uncannily ? The images aren't exactly high-res, but that's definitely two different guys. The first two photos (color one at the top and b/w mugshot pair) are the same guy, but it should hopefully be obvious that the guy in the drivers license photo is someone else. Especially to the police, since we're comparing low-res scans while the feds may have had a larger copy potentially in-hand when looking at the guy they arrested.
You may just be looking at the wrong photos from the article - in which case yes, that guy looks uncannily like himself!
The subtleties of the human face that change from person to person are things like cheekbone position, jawline, head shape, eye shape/size/placement, etc. They're what enable someone to "recognize" you in a human-to-human context, sometimes even with a facemask on. They're part of how you distinguish yourself in the mirror from other humans also.
However, if a significant portion of one race is indistinguishable for a given observer, they haven't done enough observation. Certainly not enough to arrest someone based on their "observations". A relative inability to identify facial subtleties in member of other races is a known phenomenon and has been studied - incidentally making it the perfect candidate for law enforcement training. Seems that wasn't the case here in TFA, unfortunately.
For reference, I am a different race from these guys, and my SO is a different one still, but I don't think it takes a particularly keen observer to distinguish between the two mens' faces.
If the police make an arrest based on facial recognition alone they have essentially given up doing police work and are just following suggestions that a computer makes. If that's what society chooses to use for justice then fire all the police officers and employ some minimum wage workers to do the job instead.
Those two men truly do look a lot alike, unlike the two men referenced in the article. Even so, there's no way looking like someone should imply anything at all. After all, I bear somewhat of a resemblance to a "moderately well known, but only a real fan would recognize him on the street"-level actor, and I'd really hate to get picked up if he decided to go off and do some cocaine or something.
I would hope police are better at this sort of thing then me.
Also i would hope better quality images would be used, these are terrible quality.
Are you sure you’re not comparing the wrong photos? I’m confident if you saw these two men stand side-by-side, you would not say that they look uncannily alike, unless you’re visually impaired.
I agree with someone else’s comments about the importance of observation. My brother and I worked at the same startup. I was full-time. He was an intern. After several weeks, another intern was some how confused and thought my brother and I were the exact same person. I mean sure, siblings do look alike. But some how she didn’t notice that one of us has light brown skin and the other has dark brown skin, one of us is a whole 3 inches shorter, one of us is a whole 40 pounds heavier, one of us wore glasses and the other didn’t, one of us has a full head of hair while the other one is balding in several spots with a receding hairline, etc you already see where I’m going with this. Yet for 3 whole weeks, she came to work M-F and thought we were the same person? It was an open office environment and we all sat in one large room.
<INSERT REASONABLE STATEMENT ABOUT TIMNIT GEBRU AND THE IMPORTANCE OF ETHICAL AI BUT GET DOWNVOTED TO OBLIVION>
Anywho this is a prime example of why you need humans that aren't involved in a situation to be in the loop to augment the facial-recognition algorithms. Enable them to view clean, high-res, zoom-able versions of the source images and then have them make the final call. Heck, if you're worried about bias, assign the task to a panel of people from various ethnicities, or maybe just to people of the same ethnicity as the involved person.
Btw, I'm not saying they look the same. I'm saying at a casual glance or quick look, or grainy-surveillance footage level, they do look strikingly similar.
Another factor though we may not be considering in general regarding facial-recognition is identity theft. I've dealt with that sort of thing before, and if you're not careful the government might get really confused as to who the "actual" person is, and who was the one that stole the identity is. Again, not the case here, but it is something that police need to consider.
I've learned that each phenotype has to be weighed differently than the people you grew up around the most. Completely different phenotypes and patterns often times.
But I really wonder if the same officers that dealt with the suspect also questioned the innocent victim in this case - it seems like this wouldn't be the case (and gross negligence on their part) - those people should've been able to tell them apart (instead of solely relying on the picture they got from the license). I think this is what the judge wanted instead of just the facial recognition "evidence" (which eventually led to the charges being dropped) - something like, oh I don't know, the fingerprints from the abandoned vehicle? Basic investigative work, perhaps?
Like I said - either the officers that dealt with the suspect didn’t deal with/look at the victim, or else they’re blind (or trying to meet a quota).