TITLE:
Artificial Intelligence, Ethics and Public Policy— The Use of Facial Recognition Systems in Public Transport in the Largest Brazilian Cities
AUTHORS:
Rodrigo Brandão, Glauco Arbix
KEYWORDS:
Artificial Intelligence, Facial Recognition, Ethics, Public Policy, Public Transport
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Service Science and Management,
Vol.15 No.5,
October
18,
2022
ABSTRACT: The literature on using Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems for
elaborating and implementing public policies is under development. Therefore,
little is known about how the public sector can and should use AI responsibly
and in what situations it has been able to do so. To partially fill these gaps,
we investigated the use of facial recognition (FR) systems to combat fraud in
discounts and gratuities guaranteed by law to specific groups, such as students
and the elderly, in the 30 largest Brazilian municipalities. Based on primary
data gathered through the Access to Information Law, we found that 14 use the
technology in question for the investigated purpose, and we prepared the Facial
Recognition Responsible Use Index (FRRU-I) and the Facial Recognition
Responsible Use Scale (FRRU-S). None of the cities studied reached the “Very
high” level in the FRRU-S; five of them achieved “High” level scores; three were
at the “Intermediary” level; two obtained a “Low” score, and the remaining four
showed a “Very low” score. These results suggest that the largest cities in the country do not have the necessary
administrative structures for the responsible use of FR systems or do not know
how to mobilise the structures they have to promote such use. Our findings also
indicate that the public sector’s unfamiliarity with FR systems may extend to
other AI applications.