HP WebCam Software Ships With A Racial Flaw, How Would You Respond?
Dec 21 2009 
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Thanks largely to my Twitter followers, I ran across a video demoing HP’s face-tracking feature in their laptop webcams. Unlike most demos, this video had an unexpected twist which could stir up some trouble for HP in the near future. After viewing the video, I’d love to hear how you would handle a situation like this if HP were your company in the comments.
Is HP Racist?
After watching the video, if you think HP seems racist you need to watch this video first: How To Tell People They Sound Racist by Jay Smooth (@JSmooth995)
I’m not calling HP anything, but this video will definitely shed some negative light on their company. Two employees at a store show a very serious problem with HP’s face-tracking feature in its webcams: it doesn’t recognize black people. To be more accurate, it’s not recognizing the guy in the video who happens to be black. However, it immediately recognizes a white lady and tracks her movements like a baby watching its mom. Will this apply to every dark-skinned person that tries out the feature? Who knows, but the evidence in the video points to an answer that will bother a lot of people.
Q&A
What would you do with a fatal flaw like this being shipped out to customers that are impacted by the flaw?
- How would YOU handle this situation from a PR standpoint?
- What would you do to prevent something like this from happening in the future?
- Can you look at this as an opportunity for HP? What do you see?
Looking forward to hearing your comments and tips!
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HP is not racist, they have simply put out a product that excludes a large part of society from utilizing it's technology. AND that large part of society happens to be dark skinned Black people (assuming, of course, it works on Black people of lighter complexions).
Per Jay Smooth, we can't presume to know HP's intent, but we can hold them accountable for their actions (or omission – i.e. failing to determine whether it's technology worked on dark skinned people).
HP, very wackilicious.
I would open a contest b4 Christmas 4 $1 MILLION 2 fix problem ala Netflix prize & sell hella units 2 those trying 2 get that $ ;-)
I'm not racist and I love HP computers. Solid computer, cheap, and good tech support. Yeah the motion tracking doesn't work for me either. So its not just dark complexion folks. =P
lmao thanks for that good laugh
Giannii you're mixed with black so you don't count :) I'm kidding. I own an HP laptop and most of my laptops have been HP up until this year. I don't think they're racist either, but you have to wonder who else they tested their software on before taking it to the public. If it wasn't tested on darker complexions what was the reason for not doing so?
Update on the situation: http://thenextbench.com/t5/Voodoo-Blog/Customer...
YEah, it does. They should add a contract option to make it easier on the
camera. =P
They should add a contract option to make it easier on the camera.
Can't imagine HP did this on purpose, but they surely have to own up to the error immediately–via FB, Twitter, whatever. Then fix it and offer those who purchased it a new computer with something added for free.
This reminds me of the 'racist' camera http://flic.kr/p/6nRAvJ
But racist or not, it's a serious flaw and seriously annoying
the absence of racial profiling? ;-)
I wouldn't say HP is racist because of this. But I would acknowledge the problem (even embed the video on the company blog) and simply explain that this is a technical issue (an unfortunate one for sure), one they're working hard to fix in the future. It is pretty cool technology, so HP would do well to further explain how it works and why this happens. I'd also explain how this escaped their attention before releasing it. If they didn't perform due diligence, they could simply explain that too (it's probably not something anyone considered).
Ironically, this could benefit HP in the long run – it inadvertently gave more attention to the technology and an opportunity to make improvements.
Clever post this, HP clearly aren't racisist, however, it does raise some interesting issues.
Augemented ID (started to be used in cell phone tech) doesn't suffer from this problem because it creates a 3D image of the face, maybe this would overcome the skin tone issue.
Does anyone know if it worked on asian skin tone?
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I read your blog often and it's a very clever article
Great post, interesting subject
HP did end up looking into the matter. HP e-mailed a statement that acknowledged that the webcam “may have issues with contrast recognition in certain lighting situations”. There were tests conducted by various sites that indicated that given the appropriate lighting conditions, the webcam worked just fine.
Racist HP Webcam: Tracks White People Only?
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