FTC Takes Action Against IntelliVision for Misleading AI Facial Recognition Claims

FTC moves against IntelliVision over bias claims in AI By Investing.com

WASHINGTON - The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has taken action against IntelliVision Technologies Corp., a San Jose-based company specializing in artificial intelligence-powered facial recognition software. The FTC alleges that IntelliVision made false and unsubstantiated claims regarding the absence of racial and gender biases in its technology. The complaint by the FTC asserts that IntelliVision falsely advertised its software as having one of the highest accuracy rates in the market and as being capable of operating without gender or racial bias. The agency contends that the company did not have sufficient evidence to support these claims. According to the FTC, IntelliVision also inaccurately claimed to have trained its facial recognition system on millions of faces, while in reality, the technology was trained on a significantly smaller dataset. Additionally, the FTC challenges the company's assertions about its anti-spoofing technology, which is supposed to prevent the system from being deceived by photos or video images. Under a proposed consent order, IntelliVision would be prohibited from making any misrepresentations about the accuracy, effectiveness, or bias-free performance of its facial recognition software. The company would also be required to possess and rely on competent and reliable evidence when making claims about its technology's capabilities. This action represents the FTC's second major case involving AI facial recognition technology in the past year. Previously, the FTC reached a settlement with Rite Aid (NYSE:US90274J5618=UBSS), which banned the retailer from using facial recognition for surveillance purposes for five years due to concerns about the implementation of reasonable procedures and potential harm to consumers. The FTC's decision to issue the administrative complaint was unanimous, with all five commissioners voting in favor. The consent agreement will be open to public comment for 30 days following its publication in the Federal Register, after which the FTC will decide on finalizing the order. This crackdown underscores the FTC's commitment to ensuring that companies developing and utilizing AI systems adhere to truthful advertising principles and do not mislead consumers about the capabilities and limitations of their technologies. The information for this article is based on a press release statement.

The FTC is cracking down on a firm that claims its AI-powered face recognition tech has 'zero' bias

A software provider won't be allowed to lie about the accuracy of its artificial intelligence-powered facial recognition technology under a new proposed order from the Biden administration. On Tuesday, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said that a proposed consent order with IntelliVision Technologies would prevent the San Jose, California-based company from making misleading claims about its software. That would include any misleading statements about its performance identifying people of different genders, ethnicities, and skin tones. The San Jose, California-based firm would also be prevented from making any claims about its technology without "competent and reliable" testing to back it up. Over the last six years, IntelliVision has claimed that its models have trained on millions of faces from across the world and have "zero gender or racial bias," according to the agency's complaint. A fact sheet on the company's website states its technology has an accuracy "as high as +99%." If true, that would be a huge deal. For years now, facial recognition technology has had problems identifying women and non-white individuals. In 2018, a study by Microsoft (MSFT-0.13%) researchers found that facial recognition software could be wrong as much as a third of the time when it was used to identify darker-skinned women, even as it achieved near-perfect results with light-skinned men. Those issues have largely remained a problem, and several companies have run into trouble as a result. The National Institute of Standards and Technology, which is run by the Commerce Department, tested IntelliVision's algorithms. The organization found that IntelliVision's algorithms weren't even among the top 100 tested as of December 2023, the FTC alleged in its complaint. Instead of testing its technology on millions of faces, IntelliVision took a shortcut, according to the FTC, training on images of some 100,000 people and then creating variants of those images for further testing. The FTC also said that the company didn't have evidence its anti-spoofing technology couldn't be tricked by a photo. "Companies shouldn't be touting bias-free artificial intelligence systems unless they can back those claims up," FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection Director Samuel Levine said in a statement. "Those who develop and use AI systems are not exempt from basic deceptive advertising principles."