AI Bias Allegation in Passport Photo Scanning System: A New Zealand Case

A New Zealander claims their passport application was rejected due to an alleged racial bias in the AI-powered photo scanning system. The individual, who identifies as Māori, says they were asked to submit multiple photos before being accepted. This incident raises concerns about responsible AI governance and the need for robust trustworthy AI models to prevent such incidents.

Matched TAIM controls

Suggested mapping from embedding similarity (not a formal assessment). Browse all TAIM controls

MEASURE 2.2 — similarity 0.447, rank 1. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MEASURE 2.11 — similarity 0.429, rank 2. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MAP 1.6 — similarity 0.429, rank 3. TAIM detail and related incidents →

Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/48

Data source

Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).

When citing the database as a whole, please use:

McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.

Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide

We use weekly snapshots of the AIID for stable reference. For the official suggested citation of a specific incident, use the “Cite this incident” link on each incident page.