SorryWatch pays close attention to words. We pursue matters like whether someone said she ‘was sorry,’ or said she ‘regrets what happened.’ What does it mean if he says he ‘takes full responsibility’ but also says he was ‘taken out of context’? What’s the difference between ‘I’m sorry I insulted you’ and ‘I’m sorry if I insulted you’? Etc.

People mostly agree when we point out wiggly slimy blame-dodging words. But often those words need to be pointed out, because humans are rather brilliant at rephrasing things so the words aren’t as hard to say. And sometimes the reason the words aren’t as hard to say is that those words are… not true.

Dishonest word use can start long before the point of apology. Thanks to our slavish devotion to Harry Shearer’s Le Show, we learned of a badly-worded apology for sneakily-worded denials from the New Orleans Police Department. (This story has been extensively covered by The Lens.)

It came out when New Orleans Councilmember Jason Williams was working on a draft of an ordinance to keep surveillance technology under control. His chief of staff, Keith Lampkin, called the police superintendent to be sure there were no problems with the wording. One part of the ordinance was a ban on using facial recognition technology, but since the police department had repeatedly claimed they weren’t using facial recogntion, Lampkin assumed that part would not be a problem.

Um, no. Actually, that wording would cause problems, because the police department was using it. Said the superintendent.

You are? Wait, didn’t you say you weren’t? How did we get that impression?

Folks got that impression because, for years, the NOPD has been answering questions about facial recognition by saying they don’t own facial recognition software, or by pointing to the fact the city has a Real Time Crime Center (RTCC) in charge of video surveillance, and RTCC policy forbids the use of facial recognition. But the RTCC is under Homeland Security, and isn’t part of the NOPD.

However, at a hearing in July, an RTCC administrator appeared to speak for more than the RTCC when he said “Of course the city doesn’t deploy any facial recognition technology in a law enforcement purpose. The city doesn’t have any of that technology available for our use.”

Also in that hearing Councilmember Helena Moreno asked the city’s Chief Technology Officer Jonathan Wisbey if the city used either facial recognition or characteristic tracking software. “We do not currently employ any technology that does that in 2020,” was Wisbey’s oddly-worded answer. (SorryWatch notes that odd wording often means a bad case of look-at-me-the-important-technocrat, but other times it means the person is lying.)

Earlier this very month, the ACLU of Louisiana made a public records request (PRR) for everything on the city’s “use of facial recognition technology.” The reply: “The Police Department does not use facial recognition software.” Request closed.

That seems clear, doesn’t it?

But, but, how could the Police Department be using it, if they don’t use it?

Well. It seems that the PD has “state and federal partners” who use it. Who grant them access to using it. What? Who? For how long? Which partners? The PD doesn’t feel like saying, though they did say The Lens could ask the FBI, if they wanted. (The FBI wasn’t in a mood to chat, either.)

So: ‘We don’t use it! It’s just that our friends let us use it!’

This came from NOPD spokesperson Kenneth Jones, who also said “The term employ used in the [public records request] response might’ve referred to ownership of the tool itself, which we don’t. I apologize for any misunderstanding. …Again, the word ‘employ’ was used in the context of ownership. The consensus between the PRR and NOPD response is that the NOPD does not own Facial Recognition tools.”

So there’s the apology, and it’s SUCH A BAD ONE. It’s not really an apology at all. They ‘apologize for any misunderstanding’? Bullfoot. The term ’employ’ does mean ‘use.’ It does not mean ‘own.’ English speakers know this. The NOPD craved misunderstanding. They worked hard to be misunderstood. They’re only sorry they got caught.

They used facial recognition. They didn’t want people to know, because they might get stopped. So they lied. They were trying to lie by omission, but had to fall back on plain lying.

In case you don’t care if your every movement is surveilled and recorded by the government because you HAVE NOTHING TO HIDE (wow, boring life), it’s relevant that facial recognition doesn’t work very well. And the not-working is racist in its effects. It gets white people wrong, especially women and older people. It really gets Asian and black people wrong. And it’s the absolute pits at recognizing Native Americans. (Who developed this software anyway?)

You might think that’s cool, because you don’t want facial recognition picking you out of a crowd and adding your doings to whatever database. However, when we say ‘gets it wrong” that might mean they can’t find you, it might mean passport issues, or it might mean FALSE ARREST.

As Councilmember Jay Banks pointed out, facial recognition software, helped by shitty police work, pinpointed a Detroit man as the guy who had shoplifted some watches from a Shinola store five months earlier.

Robert Williams was working when he got a call saying the Detroit police wanted him to turn himself in. He thought it was a prank. Hung up. When he drove home, cops were waiting on his lawn. They cuffed him in front of his family, took him away, and kept him 30 hours. Two detectives showed him a blurry picture of a big black guy. Williams, a big black guy, pointed out that the picture was not of him. He held it next to his face so they could compare. “You think all black guys look alike?”

One detective said to the other, “I guess the computer got it wrong.” They still didn’t let him go. Eventually he was allowed to post $1,000 bail and stand outside in the rain until his wife could pick him up. The ACLU took his case, asking for an “absolute” dismissal, an apology, and the removal of Williams’s fingerprints from the police database. Eventually the county prosecutor agreed to the dismissal and the fingerprint removal. In a statement, the office criticized the use of facial recognition without other evidence, and said “This case should not have been issued… and for that we apologize. Thankfully, it was dismissed on our office’s own motion. This does not in any way make up for the hours that Mr. Williams spent in jail.”

Also not good. They shouldn’t be patting themselves on the back (“our office’s own motion”) in the middle of their apology

Maybe you never rob a Shinola. Maybe you never travel outside the country. Maybe you never request access to top-secret facilities. But if, say, you’ve ever gone to a Rite-Aid drug store… you may still have been subject to facial recognition spying.

If facial recognition technology worked perfectly, we wouldn’t want it tracking us. No, not even so they can show us precisely-targeted ads, NO. Interestingly, it turns out that face masks frustrate that software. Black masks are especially confusing. The higher the mask is pulled up over your nose, the more the algorithms cannot cope. Pandemic silver lining?

Back to words. It’s nice to know that the NOPD understands the importance of vocabulary, even if they somehow get it so wrong. How much nicer if they understood the meaning of honesty.