In a decision which seems to be inspired by the racially-charged protests going on around the world, IBM has announced that it is suspending work on general purpose facial recognition or analysis software.

In a letter sent to congress on Monday, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said the company will no longer pursue facial recognition technology.

“IBM no longer offers general purpose IBM facial recognition or analysis software. IBM firmly opposes and will not condone uses of any [facial recognition] technology, including facial recognition technology offered by other vendors, for mass surveillance, racial profiling, violations of basic human rights and freedoms, or any purpose which is not consistent with our values and principles of Trust and Transparency.

“We believe now is the time to begin a national dialogue on whether and how facial recognition technology should be employed by domestic law enforcement agencies,” he said.

Facial recognition software has been surrounded by controversy from the first time it was trialed. In 2018, research conducted by Joy Buolamwini and Timnit Gebru found that most of the systems were biased. The finding spurred further criticism of the algorithms and efforts to fix the shortfalls of the system that resulted in bias.

The Verge analysis of the entire system found more loopholes in other areas including privacy. In December 2019, the National institute of Standards and Technology discovered “empirical evidence for the existence of a wide range of accuracy across demographic differences in the majority of the current face recognition algorithms that were evaluated,” part of it, violation of privacy that has become an everyday story of technology.

Most of the companies selling the facial recognition software have been under scrutiny. Even though not all the companies were involved in the studies conducted, many that were involved had cases to answer. For instance, Clearview AI came under scrutiny when it was discovered that its facial recognition tool, built with more than 3 billion images compiled partly from social media sites is being used by private organizations and law enforcement agencies.

IBM attempted to help with the issue of bias in facial recognition through the public data set it released in 2018. The data showed that commercial systems are more accurate if you’re a white male. This is because of lack of system technique to accommodate diversity; people of color appear less frequently than others, limiting their chances of recognition.

While IBM was still making an effort to clear the issue of bias, it was caught in a privacy controversy. The company was found sharing a separate training data set of nearly one million photos taken from Flickr without the consent of the subjects in 2019.

Other companies were also getting into trouble for the use of facial recognition technology. Facebook faced a class-action lawsuit for unlawful use of facial recognition technology that it settled with $550 million in January.

In 2018, the American Civil Liberties Union found that Rekognition, facial recognition software sold by Amazon, incorrectly matched 28 members of Congress to faces collected from 25,000 public mugshots.

IBM also considered the issues of racial profiling by law enforcement agents. As part of the reason it’s discontinuing its work on facial recognition technology, it urged the government to reform the police and address the ever increasing cases of racial injustice.

In the letter, Krishna quoted the letter Thomas J. Watson Jr., the 1953 president of IBM, wrote to all employees:

“…Each of the citizens of this country has an equal right to live and work in America. It is the policy of this organization to hire people who have the personality, talent and background necessary to fill a given job, regardless of race, color or creed.”

He added: “congress should bring more police misconduct cases under federal court purview and should make modifications to the qualified immunity doctrine that prevents individuals from seeking damages when police violate their constitutional rights.

“Congress should also establish a federal registry of police misconduct and adopt measures to encourage or compel states and localities to review and update use-of-force policies.”

With abundant evidence of inconsistencies of facial recognition technology, especially the lapse in recognition of people of color, congress is likely going to act on IBM’s letter. Other companies that may still have the intention to continue their work with the technology will eventually be stopped or face tighter rules.

The online teaching and learning style is trending in every part of the country. Many private schools that have websites added a page where students and parents can log in to access learning materials. Some schools went as far as creating websites in order to join in this trend. This development in developing countries, such as Nigeria, is a welcomed idea but it comes with a price, and that price is an impending crisis in our education system.

In Nigeria, schools are regulated by government-owned agencies. These agencies provide curriculum for each class and insist that it must be finished before a child is said to have completed a class. These agencies also set up general academic calendars that specify periods of resumption and closure for each school. No school in this country, no matter who the owner is, can ignore the directives of these agencies and go scot free.

Some may say that tertiary institutions have their own academic calendars and sets of curriculum for different schools and departments. Well, this may be so in other countries but never in Nigeria. Polytechnics, for instance, get their curricula from the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) and this board comes for regular inspections to make sure that every department sticks to the stipulated items in the curriculum. Failure to do so leads to the withdrawal of the department’s accreditation or the agency may mete out any other sanctions it deems fit.

As for the dates for yearly resumption and closure of higher schools, Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) sees that. This agency controls schools resumptions through the UTME exam schedules, result release and posting of students for admissions. When they post students to the school, it is expected that their admissions should be processed within a certain period of time. Schools that miss that period may be denied access to freshers for the following session. However, tertiary institutions are in positions to decide when and how their semesters run. The most important thing is that they resume and close within a specified period of time. And that they cover up the contents of the curricular before the students graduate.

Now, you must have noticed that some schools have already gone deep into the scheme of works for 3rd term (for primary and secondary schools) and course outline for second semester (for tertiary institutions) through online classes. But one special thing about these schools engaging in online schooling is that they are all private-owned. No government-owned school has been recorded to be engaged in any of this practice, and no announcement by the government directed schools to start online classes. In fact, just recently about twelve universities have been approved to start distance learning, which they are yet to do. This is just to say that all the schools in Nigeria that carry out online teaching and learning are, like our people will say, on their own.

Now, let’s look at how the educational crisis will happen as a result of these online schools.

• Paying Salaries when Schools Reopen

From what I know, many schools engaging in online classes have made their students pay their 3rd term school fees. This must have been used in paying salaries and settling other logistics because these schools insisted that their teachers come to work. We know that very soon schools will definitely reopen for the completion of second term/first semester, and the resumption of third term/second semester. One is then left to ask how these schools plan to pay teachers and other workers their salaries when they resume fully and officially.

• Re-Teaching Previously Taught Contents of the Curriculum

It is obvious that these schools are going to re-teach physically all they have taught virtually. This comes to ask how the teachers and children can stand this repeat because it will definitely lead to loss of interest in academic activities. It is more worrisome when one considers that this is bound to happen for about three months or more within the term. It would be better if schools are asked to reopen and vacate at their own discretion, but that will create more problems. Besides, it is unwise to leave some children at home when others are in school. However, this can be advantageous if well utilised. The teachers may need to spend more of their time on evaluation and practical than on teaching what they have taught before.

• Problem with External Examinations

It would have been easier to re-organise school calendars if external exam bodies, such as WAEC, do not exist. But in a situation where countries that subscribed to WAEC re-opened their schools while Nigerian schools are still shut down, there is bound to be a problem. Many Nigerian WAEC candidates are in government-owned schools that do not engage in online teaching and learning, and so did not engage in any lessons that will help them with their studies and preparation for the exam. This will be most unfair to them because WAEC may not consider them when it fixes exam timetables. These children truly need help.

It is known that the education agencies that regulate school activities are working round the clock to ensure that schools are reopened and that it will be safe for the children to go back to school. As they plan for school reopening, they should also consider these mentioned problems and find ways to address them too.