TSA Says Theyre Not Discriminating Against Black Women but Body Scanners May Be

Re:TSA Says Theyre Not Discriminating Against Black Women bu... by tj-teej on Wednesday April 17, 2019 @01:30PM (#19684584)

You're right you can't blame the machine. I'm blaming the people who designed it, who defined what the 1 and the 0 are.

If everyone in the country had the "certain hairstyles we'd have no problem saying "this machine doesn't work".

And frankly I don't think anyone who knows a lot of African-American Women would even consider asking them to change their hair.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:TSA Says Theyre Not Discriminating Against Black Women bu... by rando444 on Wednesday April 17, 2019 @03:00PM (#19685421)

You can't blame the people that designed it.

Some hairstyles are just bunched up and the machine can't tell what it is, so it gets flagged for manual inspection.

This is not a problem that is easily solved with technology.

Your only options are:

(1) not checking anyone's hair

(2) manually checking everyone's hair

(3) letting the machine do it's job and accept the fact that it can't scan certain hairstyles.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:TSA Says Theyre Not Discriminating Against Black Women bu... by CompanionCuuube on Wednesday April 17, 2019 @02:49PM (#19685332)

> If everyone in the country had the "certain hairstyles we'd have no problem saying "this machine doesn't work".

On the contrary, it would be easier to say that the machine does work because it does flag down people who have suspicious body features regardless of race.

[ Parent | on HN ]