Bertillon DiF Intaglio Print

From exposing.ai:
IBM Diversity in Faces (DiF) dataset of "annotations of one million publicly available face images."1 The dataset was created in 2019 to address existing biases in overwhelmingly light-skinned and male-dominated facial datasets. IBM believed that the dataset "will encourage deeper researcher on this important topic and accelerate efforts towards creating more fair and accurate face recognition systems."1

However, the dataset caused a fierce backlash after it became widely known through an article published on NBC News. IBM is now being sued in a class action lawsuit led by a photographer whose photos and biometrics were used without consent. He is seeking damages of $5,000 for each intentional violation of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, or $1,000 for each negligent violation, for everyone affected. The lawsuit aims to represent all Illinois citizens whose biometric data was used in the dataset.

Beyond these issues of data collection, I also found the IBM's use of cranio-facial measurements to quantify the diversity within this dataset as very much related to a larger historically problematic continuum of phrenological practices.

For this artwork, I created an intaglio print, overlaying IBM's facial distances metrics onto a reproduced mugshot of Alphonse Bertillon, the father of anthropometry usage within law enforcement. In overlapping IBM's cranio-facial measurements onto Bertillon's mugshot, I want to assert these interconnected histories and also turn the surveillant lens onto Bertillon himself.