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The Current Transcript for May 24, 2018

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

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Pump Shotgun out...Ninja Looking for the flight... Whips the first shot... With the second... The challenge comes in... Can Ninja win his first game? The rockets are out...[Cheers]

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: His millions of fans know him as Ninja. A 26 year old who makes millions of dollars a year streaming his sessions of the massively successful videogame Fortnite. Fortnite is a cultural phenomenon, the obsession of tweens teens and older gamers but it's also a breakout spectator sport. 66 million hours of Fortnite were watched in the first two weeks of this month. It and other e-sports are taking a page from traditional sports where young gamers are still getting lucrative sponsorships and colleges are hiring sport coaches who recruit for varsity teams. In a moment how e-sports are offering a new economy to a new generation. Also today:.

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Everybody is saying that, oh, we are lying. R Kelly is not the monster, he is not that person. I've always been a fan of R Kelly from Day one. I was always defending him, until I got behind closed doors.

AMT: Assante McGee told reporters she lived with R&B singer R Kelly for three years, an experience she characterized as manipulative and controlling, adding her voice to a number of women alleging years of sexual abuse. Despite the #MuteRKelly movement critics say his alleged victims, mostly black women and teens, have been ignored for too long. We're looking at the music industry that's been looking away, in half an hour. And the movie Minority Report made it clear that facial recognition software has many uses.

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Stressed out John Anderton?... Hey John Anderton... John Anderton. You could use a Guiness about now.

AMT: Now a high school in Missouri is one of the first to adopt facial recognition, an effort to keep problematic students or others away from its students essentially to try to avoid another high school shooting massacre. And if you think that might violate civil liberties the head of the school says it's better than arming his teachers. Hear him in an hour. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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Do your kids play Fortnite? Here's how it could win them a college scholarship

Guests: Tim Commandeur, Joshua Buchanan

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VOICE 1: [unintelligible] Oh man! You had a... Holy Sh- [beep] Never mind.

[Laughs]

VOICE 2: I am right here I was just on a bridge.

[gunshots]

VOICE 1: You saved me! We are all alive! Let’s go!

AMT: Well you may have grown up thinking videogames were something to play. Today they are also a spectator sport. And what we just heard was a celebrity match up in March. Canadian hip hop star Drake teamed up with a star from the e-sports world who goes by the name of Ninja. They were playing Fortnite and millions of people watched. Their outings set records on YouTube and the game streaming site Twitch. At any given moment there were at least 200,000 people watching Fortnite online. And just this week Epic Games announced it will provide 100 million dollars to fund prize pools for Fortnite tournaments making Fortnite the biggest e-sport in the world. That celebrity gamer, Ninja, who was born Tyler Blevins, makes a nice living playing Fortnite. He makes 500,000 dollars US a month.

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A Lot of the income is definitely coming from Amazon and like Twitch Prime subscribers. I think that I offer a combination of high gameplay like high tier gameplay that they really can't get on with a lot of other content creators. And I also think I offer- I mean I'm very goofy if you've ever watched any of my streams or YouTube videos. I do impressions and stuff like that all the time and it's crazy shenanigans and I think that the combination of that, it's like a hybrid and it's just really fun to watch. And a pretty positive environment as well. .

AMT: Well In Fortnite 100 online players are marooned on an island. The goal is to be the last one standing. And if you play, or there's a young person in your life who spends all their time playing the game, then it turns out it could be good for their education because Ashland University in Ohio is now offering a Fortnite's scholarship. Joshua Buchanan coaches the school's e-sports team and we've reached him there. Hello.

JOSHUA BUCHANAN: Hello.

AMT: Why Are you offering the Fortnite's scholarship?

JOSHUA BUCHANAN: We thought Fortnite was one of the biggest upcoming games. We thought it had a lot of potential and we believe a lot of the best e-sports are created out of a grassroots scene where people wanted the scene and then the company decided to provide it and that's what Ithaca has done. So we're really excited to have a league for it.

AMT: Why is it so popular?

JOSHUA BUCHANAN: I Think there's a couple of reasons. I think the first reason was the creativity with the game it's much like Minecraft where you can kind of make your own designs and play with your friends and just get creative. But also you know a hundred people dropped down on this island and only one person or one team gets to win. You go into a game not expecting to win and when you do, which almost everyone has at some point, feels amazing. You feel on top of the world. And if you don't win then you know you still feel pretty good if you gave a good performance and then you just move right into the next game. So you get a lot of immediate gratification through the game. .

AMT: Can you help me with a Fortnite explainer? If you had to tell somebody's grandmother, who'd never heard of it, how would you describe it?

JOSHUA BUCHANAN: So Tonight is a game where people play either, on the computer, on a gaming console like the Xbox or the PlayStation, or on their phone. They joined in a group with their friends and then they go into a game with you know ninety nine other people from across the world. They all drop under this virtual island and then have to collect resources that they find on the ground then they get equipment and weapons, and whoever he can be the smartest or the most enginuitive and survive the longest wins the game.

AMT: And they can change skins. Can they?

JOSHUA BUCHANAN: Oh Absolutely. Yes. So Forte offers cosmetic skins that you can purchase in the game. You can make your character look anything from a spaceman to a dinosaur to a graffiti artist. You know they have tons of different designs for your character and it doesn't affect the gameplay at all other than just what you look like and how much fun you're having.

AMT: And so how much money would the average teenager spend playing if they're changing skins or doing stuff? Does it get expensive or can they do it relatively cheaply?

JOSHUA BUCHANAN: So they have a couple of different options. So every day a new store is released, every 24 hours and then they have skins that cost about ten dollars apiece. But then they also release this thing called the battle path where you pay ten dollars for a battle pass and then you get new skins every time you level up. And the way you level up in the game is by playing more.

AMT: So let’s talk about your scholarship. How much is it?

JOSHUA BUCHANAN: I am to be offered scholarships up to 4000 dollars per year, tuition of 21000 but total cost if you were to live on campus is 31,000 dollars. So it adds up to be about 13 percent of tuition.

AMT: And how much interest have you had in the scholarship?

JOSHUA BUCHANAN: Now we've had interest from across the world, across the country, Canada, United States, Mexico, pretty much everywhere. We've had about 1500 people applied to be on the Fortnite team. .

AMT: Oh what do you say to a potential recruit who can say I can make that much playing on Twitch?

JOSHUA BUCHANAN: I say absolutely. If you can do that playing on Twitch go for it. Playing the Twitch game is a risky business. For every [unintelligible] there are you know 10,000 other people who aren't making any money.

AMT: And Of course offering a scholarship for this actually is your stamp of approval that it does belong in university sports.

JOSHUA BUCHANAN: Oh Absolutely. There's a lot of debate about whether e-sports or Fortnite whether they constitute sports, whether they have that level of physicality. And I think for all intents and purposes it doesn't matter all that much. It's competitive. People want to watch it. People can form communities. And if it's something you know like basketball or football where they have all these traits I think why not include it in athletics and offer a scholarship for it.

AMT: So what makes a good fort night player? What are you looking for when you recruit for your collegiate team?

JOSHUA BUCHANAN: And A lot of these games or other sports in general it's a lot about how quick you are or you know how good your aim is or how good you are clicking. I think in Fortnite they make it much more about how creative you are and really how much you can think critically and kind of outsmart your opponent.

AMT: What do you see as the benefits of playing Fortnite and other e-sports games?

JOSHUA BUCHANAN: I Think oddly enough it's the biggest benefit I think is the social aspect which I think a lot of people don't fully understand and was very different back you know even just 10 years ago. People who play videogames are often considered to be you know kind of alone in their basement or in their room playing by themselves. But nowadays almost any someone is playing a game, they're likely talking to their friends, forming relationships, meeting new people. So I think it's an excellent way to be social.

AMT: And how many U.S. colleges and universities have e-sports teams?

JOSHUA BUCHANAN: I Think there's about 75 colleges and universities offering scholarships but well over 500 schools compete in the e-sports. .

AMT: It's Interesting because the job you have didn't exist several years ago.

JOSHUA BUCHANAN: Yes Absolutely. I did not enter my undergraduate career expecting to be an e-sports coach at the end of it. Certainly not.

AMT: What Is your background in gaming?

JOSHUA BUCHANAN: So I competed in professional Starcraft 2 Starcraft 2 was the first big game to get popular on Twitch.TV, the streaming platform. I was ranked top 25 in the United States in that game and then I started to coach some better professional players for the number 3 Starcraft Team in North America. I did that for several years while I got my background in economics and philosophy and then just brought me here to Ashland. .

AMT: Gaming Has traditionally been a male dominated culture. What are you doing to attract female gamers?

JOSHUA BUCHANAN: I'm Just trying to create an environment that's as accepting as possible. You'll notice a lot of the time like if I'm playing in a DotA game or StarCraft game or anything like that and there's a girl in the game a lot of the guys will change how they act. Whether they become more aggressive towards the girl gamer or they try to impress her. One of those things tends to happen and we're trying to create an environment where everyone is equal, everyone has the same opportunities, no one is treated differently.

AMT: What would you say to a parent concerned that their tween or their teen is spending too much time playing video games?

JOSHUA BUCHANAN: I would say that that is absolutely a reasonable concern all the time. To be the absolute best in the world. Maybe you have to spend many hours playing the game but I think there's checks and balances and it's important to have a balanced lifestyle. And they can definitely be success when sports and their academics and their social life all at the same time.

AMT: Okay Thanks for talking with me today.

JOSHUA BUCHANAN: No Problem I appreciate the time.

AMT: Joshua Buchannan coach of the Ashland University EA Sports team. We reached him in Ashland, Ohio. Well as Fortnite's popularity has ballooned, so have stories of parents fighting with their kids trying to pry them away from the game. Our producer Willow Smith went to check in with one family trying to figure out just how much Fortnite is too much for that night. Cindy Graham and her 13 year old son Iain live in Toronto.

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IAIN: I Probably from about from when school ends. I usually start around 4:00 and maybe end at 6:00. Most of my friends play Fortnite. A couple months ago in school. I recently learned about dova mean and how does that mean gets released in your brain when you think you've accomplished things and it's a great feeling to accomplish things in front of your friends. [To co-players] I am worried about you, you'll end out sick of it. .

CINDY: I do try to figure out if it's going to be super graphic or gory in that kind of thing and I don't agree with games like Call of Duty and those types.

IAIN: Super bloody violent games are probably not good for younger kids. But another thing is Fortnite is sort of cartoony. So the art style isn't meant to be bloody it's just meant to 'Oh I'm dead'. .

CINDY: We would prefer that he is spending more time outside playing with his friends instead of up here talking to them via headset. But we try to balance it. [Son playing in the background] We are also still texting them from the dinner table and saying Can you please come down right now. So that can get frustrating.

IAIN: It's quite social because I'm constantly talking to my friends. Often adults will think oh no I'm killing some - [laughs] somebody had a rocket launcher - like I'm going you're killing people but at the same time you're just trying to win. You don't really focus on the fact that you're murdering somebody.

CINDY: For Iain. I think there are some benefits to playing video games. He gets a lot out of it and it builds his confidence.

IAIN: Since ever since I was 11 and played it quite a bit of Minecraft. It's been a quite a bit of a debate. .

CINDY: We Try to limit it as much as we can. Balance is still a struggle.

[Iain Talking to co-players]

AMT: Okay there we go. He just got eliminated. Whether it is Fortnite or League of Legends or Call of Duty e-sports is big business and it has opened a new career path for some young gamers. Tim Commandeur is a professional gamer. He goes by the name HoneyBee. He plays a popular fighting game called Injustice 2. He's with me in our Toronto studio. Hello.

TIM COMMANDEUR: Hi. Thanks so much for having me. .

AMT: You Were laughing as you were listening to the two of them. What were you thinking?

TIM COMMANDEUR: I think it's interesting because it does kind of somewhat bring back memories of when I was younger and I would play games myself and I'd have my parents telling me that kind of similar things you need to go outside.

AMT: So how did you become a professional gamer?

TIM COMMANDEUR: I Just had a passion for the game and it just kind of turned into something of a career for me. I was actually competing in the first iteration of the game Injustice 1. And it just I started competing at tournaments and local stuff in Toronto for the first year that it was out in 2013 because I just really wanted to get good at it. And I would go with my brother and we'd play tournament once a month or something like that. Before a year into the game we decided we want to really see how good we are, at which point we decided to take like 14 hour bus ride to the United States and compete in some larger tournaments over there. .

AMT: And so what's the what's the objective in injustice too?

TIM COMMANDEUR: It's a fighting game. So essentially it's a one player versus one player where both players have a life bar and you essentially have to hit each other enough times to deplete those life bars until it's down to zero. .

AMT: At what point did you realize this could be a career for you?

TIM COMMANDEUR: I think the point when I realized that this is something I could really do is when I got picked up by my team Beast Coast because before that point I was still working nine to five regular job. I was working at an insurance brokerage and I would just play on my free time, whenever I could. At that point I didn't think I could actually do this full time because there just wasn't enough money in it for me like to sustain myself. But when I got picked up by East Coast it made it so that I can actually do this full time.

AMT: And can I ask what you make?

TIM COMMANDEUR: I make roughly 5000 a month.

AMT: 5000 Dollars a month. .

TIM COMMANDEUR: Yes.

AMT: And so you quit the day job you went to university. .

TIM COMMANDEUR: Yes I graduated a couple of years ago. .

AMT: And what were you studying?

TIM COMMANDEUR: I was studying business finance at Ryerson University.

AMT: Oh OK. And then you got that job and then you quit because you could make a living at this. But it's the sponsorships as well, huh? In the end the prize money is on top of what you make a month?

TIM COMMANDEUR: So for someone like myself the prize money is always there and it's always nice to win extra money. But I would never think of like whether I can do this full time based solely on how much prize money there is. You have to think about it more so what is reliable? What can you think is going to come every single month? So for me that's my sponsorship with East Coast, that's my payments I get from YouTube and that's my patreon payments that I get as well. .

AMT: So how old are you?

TIM COMMANDEUR: I'm Twenty five.

AMT: And how long have you been professional?

TIM COMMANDEUR: Well professionally doing this full time it's been maybe seven months or so, competing in tournaments I've been doing for about four years.

AMT: And what has the income allowed you to do?

TIM COMMANDEUR: Well it’s allowed me to have a lot more time to actually practice the game. It's also allowed me to offer lessons and stuff through my patron. So when I would when I decided to quit my job that's when I opened up my patreon which gives people the ability to do private sessions with me and join like a community that I've created, and by pledging monthly amounts of money anywhere from five dollars maybe 30 dollars something like that.

AMT: And You and your own condo, don't you?

TIM COMMANDEUR: I do yes.

AMT: So you're managing to live your life and have the job you want.

TIM COMMANDEUR: Exactly like I'm essentially living "the dream" which is being able to do exactly what I love to do and being independent.

AMT: It's so interesting because it wasn't that long ago that the job you have didn't exist.

TIM COMMANDEUR: Exactly. Exactly.

AMT: It's a new economy. What does it tell you about the economic shift happening around sports and gaming.

TIM COMMANDEUR: If you look at my category of e-sports which is the fighting game nishe it's not as big as stuff like League of Legends or Starcraft or even Fortnite. It's not that big but it has been growing substantially every year. So if you compare what it is now in fighting games to what it was maybe four years ago, it's night and day. Like four years ago no one that plays the games that I play could ever be doing this full time.

TIM COMMANDEUR: So what advice do you have for young people who want to become pro gamers to be a professional gamer. It's really a passion of yours. It has to be something that you really really love. So that's always something that you can always find the time to do after you do the stuff you should be doing like going to school.

AMT: And what does the odds like to go pro is that like people who skate and want to join the NHL.

TIM COMMANDEUR: It is probably some somewhat comparable, I would say, to like people that are like pro athletes or anything like that. Not everyone can be the cream of the crop. You have to put a lot of dedication and hard work to getting there. .

AMT: What's a typical day like for you? How much time do you spend on the job?

TIM COMMANDEUR: Around 8 hours a day playing games, whether that's training for a particular match ups that I'm going to see in tournaments, whether that's playing with my patreons, whether that's just streaming. It comes a lot of different things and sometimes I also play other games more so for fun.

AMT: So you spend as much time in this as you did at the other job you had. .

TIM COMMANDEUR: For me it's hard for me to calculate exactly how much time I'm spending working because I don't really see this as working. It's really just me doing what I love to do.

AMT: And where do you see professional gaming taking you in years to come?

TIM COMMANDEUR: Well for me it's hard to say because you don't know how long you're gonna be on top, right. Because everyone's always wants to be the best. Everyone wants to get better. For me I always try to train myself to still be at the top and try to still be super competitive when it comes to tournaments I want people to be scared if they have me in their path. I want to perform really well but at the same time I'm also building up my YouTube channel. I have about 50,000 subscribers and I would love to continue building that up and get that to a point where maybe YouTube could be a source of revenue that is really stable for me, and I could just continue making games on there while also competing at tournaments.

AMT: Creating your own business. .

TIM COMMANDEUR: Yes exactly. .

AMT: The Other thing that's really interesting in how things have changed is the spectators. What do you think people get from watching?

TIM COMMANDEUR: Well I would compare it to like maybe any traditional sport you get the enjoyment of seeing something at possibly a level a lot higher than what you yourself can accomplish. Right. People watch basketball because they like to watch the pros play basketball oin the NBA. People watch the tournament because they want to see the best players play each other.

AMT: It's not the job you thought you'd have when you were growing up when you were smaller, huh?

TIM COMMANDEUR: Definitely not. Definitely not. When I was smaller this was I couldn't even imagine this would be a thing. .

AMT: It is how much the economy is changing. Thanks for coming in. .

TIM COMMANDEUR: Yes. Thanks so much for having me. .

AMT: Tim Commandeur, AKA Honey/bee is a professional gamer in Canada. He was with me in our Toronto studio. Do you play any sports? Do your kids? What do you think of the prospect of becoming a pro? Tweet @TheCurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook. Email us from our Web site Sibisi dot ca slash the current. Click on the contact link. Stay with us. CBC News is next and then American r NBA star R. Kelly has been followed by allegations of sexual misconduct for decades. He still gets nominated for Grammys. Why that time's up movement may mean the end of the music in our next half hour. I'm Anna-Maria Tremonti. This is The Current. .

AMT: [Music: Theme]

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Music industry is complicit in R. Kelly's continued success, says culture critic

Guests: Soraya McDonald, Jim De Rogatis

AMT: Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Currents.

[Music: Theme]

AMT: Still to come, with schools across America hoping they will not be the site of the next school shooting, technology offers a potential tool. Facial recognition technology is being looked at seriously as a way to identify threats before the shooting starts. We'll hear about its promise and the potential problems in half an hour. But first muting an R&B star.

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[Song: I believe I Can Fly]

AMT: From 199, that is likely the best known song from the two decades plus long career of R&B singer R Kelly. Seemingly tailor made for wedding receptions and graduation ceremonies, I Believe I Can Fly was a chart topper around the world. It helped make R Kelly one of his generation's biggest selling artists. But despite his success, R Kelly's music from the release of that song to today has been shadowed by allegations about the artist himself. Allegations about his behaviour and relationships with women. And with the momentum of movements such as MeToo and .Time'sUp putting the focus on victims of sexual misbehaviour. More and more people are asking whether the R&B star's time may be up. It was back in the 1990s that a then 27 year old R Kelly married singer Aaliyah who was aged just 15. A wedding certificate had falsely claimed she was 18 and the marriage was soon annulled, but in the years that followed there have been four civil suits filed against R Kelly centred around relationships with much younger women. Each was settled out of court. Last summer an exposé from BuzzFeed News focused on what it called an abusive sex cult, including allegations from parents who said R Kelly was holding their daughters against their will. Now this week a woman named Faith Rodgers announced she is suing Mr. Kelly whom she accuses of sexual battery, false imprisonment and deliberately infecting her with herpes. In an interview with CBS Ms. Rogers describes how R Kelly talked to her about her age.

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He comes over and he starts like rubbing the side of my face and he asks me how old I was and I told him. He's like you know after really you know 16 that you can tell daddy right. And he was like you know you just look about 14 15 or 16.

AMT: Faith Rogers was 19 at the time. Her allegations are just the latest in what seems like an almost endless string of them. And yet R Kelly has never been convicted of any crime and was touring up until last summer. R Kelly has repeatedly and vehemently denied claims against him. In April he issued a statement to a British news site that read in part and I'm quoting: "I will say that I'm infuriated and I am heartbroken by the false claims against me. These accusations being perpetrated by the media as an attempt to distort my character and to destroy my legacy that I have worked so hard to build". Jim De Rogatis is one of the very first music journalists to start digging into the allegations against R Kelly in Chicago, in the year 2000. He was the person behind the latest reporting on this from Buzzfeed. Jim De Rogatis joins us from Chicago. And just a warning this conversation will cover some mature and sensitive content. Hello Jim.

JIM DE ROGATIS: Good Morning Anna Maria.

AMT: What can you tell me about what Faith Rogers is alleging in her lawsuit? What more is she alleging?

JIM DE ROGATIS: Well what faith is saying in public is what many other women have said in public in my stories and others, going back to the mid 90s. She's just the latest young woman coming forward and talking about what allegedly is a pattern of predatory behavior. These are not isolated incidents. These are dozens of young women who have made accusations in lawsuits, in on the record interviews, in the trial for Mr. Kelly in 2008 for 21 counts of making child pornography. This is 30 years of alleged predatory behavior, exploitation and mistreatment, physical and mental abuse of young women, women in the public spotlight of the world by a man who sold 60 million records while doing this.

AMT: Now we heard the statement from R Kelly from April. How has he responded to the latest lawsuit from Ms. Rogers?

JIM DE ROGATIS: He's been silent for the last week or so but I imagine he will soon use his favored propaganda outlet TMZ to [unintelligible] it again. You know we've heard some from the women in the court who the parents say are brainwashed - these are words they have used in reports to police - you know saying we're happy and we are where we want to be. You know the thing that's the parents, five parents, on the record have said are harrowing, that their daughters are told when to eat, when to sleep, how to dress, how to pleasure him in encounters that he records and they were allegedly physically and mentally abused when they do not follow his rules.

AMT: I want to get to the parents in a minute but let's just stick with these allegationss, the latest for a minute. The Dallas police have said they are investigating her allegations that R Kelly knowingly transmitted an SCD.

JIM DE ROGATIS: But that is not true. My understanding is Dallas police are not instigating at the civil law suit.

AMT: Overall how significant do you think this lawsuit is in the context of the past complaints?

JIM DE ROGATIS: I think it's all about the context and worry it's the accumulation of complaints that prompted Time's Up and the #MeToo movement and the specific Mute R Kelly movement. Young black women have been talking out about R Kelly since the mid 90s and it's only now, after decades, that people are listening to them. And some of them now have tremendous power. Tarana Burke, the founder of #MeToo and Ava DuVernay and Shonda Rhimes. These are women who have become successful and now have a measure of power and it's only now after three decades that people are listening to these black women saying this man is preying on our community. So Faith Rogers lawsuit is one of several. The FBI has been investigating Kelly's alleged cult since July. Although we've seen no action and law enforcement in three states in America Florida, Georgia, and Illinois have spent hours interviewing people like Ms. Rogers and like other women who've spoken out and like the parents but have gotten nothing yet. .

AMT: You have published more reporting earlier this month about the situation of the women who are living at R Kelly's properties. What specifically are the allegations?

JIM DE ROGATIS: The allegations are that Kelly, well he resides in Chicago in Trump Tower, houses between four and six young women at his recording studio rented near Justine street by Union Park in Chicago. And these women are as I said told when to eat went to sleep how to dress. Separated from friends and family they can speak to no one but him and if they break any of his rules they were abused allegedly. You know he tells them how to pleasure him in encounters that he records. Videotape has been a theme for him since the mid-90s. The tape that he was indicted for in 2008 was prosecutors alleged him having sex with a 14 year old girl. So a harrowing document 26 minutes and 39 seconds long. That was shown numerous times during his trial but because the girl on that videotape did not testify nor did her mother or father, though a dozen witnesses did including her aunt and other family members. She was acquitted. The jury said we never heard from the victim and that that young woman, she was young at the time, is still a part of this circle. This alleged cult of brainwashed women.

AMT: We have a clip from last July from the family of Jocelyn savage. This is how her mother Gongaline Savage describes how R Kelly was treating the women she's speaking with Ryan Cameron host of the local radio station V-103 in Atlanta.

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GONGALINE SAVAGE: The mental, emotional and physical abuse of what he calls whoopings because there are his...

HOST: Wait wait wait wait wait wait. What now?

GONGALINE SAVAGE: He calls them whoopings. They call him daddy. He's telling me he's raised them. So they develop a sense of, almost like a Stockholm syndrome type of thing.

HOST: They are brainwashed.

GONGALINE SAVAGE: Basically, yes, they are brainwashed.

HOST: And he whipped them. For what?

GONGALINE SAVAGE: Someone told me just recently, yesterday that she got a whipping, she was in and out the house. She said she received the whipping once for swearing.

AMT: And we know that Jocelyn Savage the daughter of the woman we just heard in that clip has made a video statement to say she's okay. Have police done anything to address this? What's going on there?

JIM DE ROGATIS: Police in Georgia did one well-being check went to the house where he previously house the girls that he rented in Georgia. And nobody answered the door and that was the entirety of their action. In Chicago, they went to that recording studio once a young woman came out and said 'Oh we're fine'. And there was no other action. A week ago, Saturday, the parents of another girl from Florida were in front of that recording studio arguing with Kelly's 24/7 security guards that they wanted to see their daughter. And Chicago police came in force. I was there. And instead of doing a well-being check or taking a report they threatened to arrest those parents if they didn't leave immediately. And the parents were furious and distraught. It really is a situation, you know the Faith Rodgers piece of it, the Aaliyah piece about ancient history. Those are incidents that happened in the past. What these parents are saying, five of them on the record - I am not using their names because we consider their daughter's sexual abuse victims. What's very interesting on the record is no one is helping us get our daughter home. Get them the situation of danger.

AMT: I want to ask you about some of the Spotify decision as well. Earlier this month, R Kelly responded to the decision by the music streaming service Spotify to remove his music from its playlists. A statement from his representative said: "Mr. Kelly for 30 years has sung songs about his love and passion for women. He is innocent of the false and hurtful accusations in the ongoing smear campaign against him waged by enemies seeking a payoff. He's never been convicted of a crime nor does he have any pending criminal charges against him." What else has he had to say about these allegations over all of these years?

JIM DE ROGATIS: There's a startling clip from years ago on VH1 where the American Music Journalist Touré asked him what about this thing about you pursuing teenage girls and he takes a long pause and he says 'What do you mean by teenage?' I can't underscore enough. I'm 53 years old. I've written 11 books about music of a college professor teaching reviewing the arts I've been a rock critic since I was 17. In the history of popular music I have never seen a case that is more unique or singular. We know about groupie culture. We know about pop stars pursuing young women. We can go back to Frank Sinatra and we can take it up to Justin Bieber. Okay. This Is a man who for 30 years has had dozens of dozens of young women make the same accusations that he picked them up at 14-15-16 an assistant pressed a little rolled up piece of paper, a ball into the palm of her hand with a number. He promised to make them a star. As he did with Aaliyah. Instead it became this weird exploitative sexual relationship. Some of those women attempted suicide when the relationship ended, when they walked away. Dozens of these women. This is not Jerry Lee Lewis marrying his cousin or Jimmy Page with the groupy Lori Maddox. This is dozens of the same accusations for 30 years in the spotlight of the world with the most popular and the voice of his generation.

AMT: We're going to pick this up with our next guest. Jim De Rogatis thank you for your time.

JIM DE ROGATIS: You're most welcome. .

AMT: Jim De Rogatis is a music critic and radio host. His reporting on R. Kelly has appeared on Buzzfeed. He spoke with us from Chicago. Now in the past year a campaign to mute R Kelly has been gathering momentum. Activists have managed to pressure both Spotify and Apple Music to start promoting R Kelly's music. You can still hear the music if you search for it but it no longer comes up in their playlists or algorithms mute R Kelly has also managed to get 10 R Kelly concerts canceled. Now the group is pushing for Sony the singer's record label to drop him. Here is Mute R Kelly co-founder Orinike Odeleye.

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The entertainment industry is so deeply complicit and they know themselves to be complicit. And because they're complicit in so much not just criminal behavior but bad behavior among artists that feel like you know for them they feel like it's a slippery slope. They would have to clean up so much if they had to clean up our telly. But our answer to that is yes, yes you do. You know an artist's job is no more important than a postman's job than a teacher's job than a fireman's job. And if they're not allowed to have this kind of egregious behavior then why should this be allowed. So I think that you know and so often the radio stations and the record execs and the promoters everybody has their hands you know in his pocket. He's getting a lot of people paid you know and they don't want to bite the hand that feeds them. But we have to ask them to step up on a kind of moral high ground and stop talking so much about economics and start thinking about morality.

AMT: Well for a wider look at this on the role of the industry in keeping our Kelly's career alive I'm joined by Suraiya McDonald. She is culture critic with The Undefeated. That's the ESPN Web site that looks at the intersection of race culture and sports. Soraya McDonald is in our studio in New York City hello.

SORAYA MCDONALD: Good morning?

AMT: What did you think when you saw the latest civil lawsuit against R Kelly. I think it's it's very significant. One of the first things that crossed my mind was that this while it may seem like a small piece of the puzzle now could potentially be very important, years down the line at some point. That's basically what we saw happen with Bill Cosby and Andrea Constand. Initially he was deposed I think in 2004 for a civil lawsuit that she filed. And it was until you know a couple of years ago that those depositions were unsealed and could be used in a criminal trial against Cosby which finally led to his conviction earlier this year. And so whatever testimony that ends up coming up in this civil trial could end up being really important.

SORAYA MCDONALD: We have been hearing about these allegations for years and he has been able to continue a successful music career in the face of them. What should people in the music industry have done as these allegations about Mr. Kelly came to light?

AMT: I think first off they shouldn't have turned a blind eye to his actions. There is a very revealing story in The Washington Post about how the music industry basically just sort of found ways to either ignore his behavior or just find some way of claiming plausible deniability. Either by not watching the videotape that Jim was referring to in which Kelly was charged with creating child pornography, or you know they would simply find a way to say well his sex tape doesn't have anything to do with our business. And in doing so would basically just ignore this sort of behavior as long as he was making money for them. We did reach out to Sony Music car Kelly's label asking about the call to drop him and they declined to comment. But is there something specific to the music industry that allows artists to continue their careers despite such allegations?

SORAYA MCDONALD: I'm not sure if it's specific to the music industry. If only because what we've seen so far with #MeToo is that this problem of sexual harassment and sexual assault that's enabled by sort of concentrated power is something that we see across industries, whether it's affecting women who work in hotels, whether it's you know the news industry we've seen Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose both be ousted from their jobs and there were no prominent figures in their industries. We've seen this with Harvey Weinstein. So I don't think it's just unique to the music industry. I think this is more of a sickness about how the way our society views women and girls. In R Kelly's case, I think that's exacerbated by the fact that his alleged victims have all been young black women in particular. You'd think it would have been a quicker reaction you know if it wasn't black women. Possibly. I certainly think that there would have been more of a rallying to try to rescue these women or at least listen to them. Particularly if this was something that was happening in mass, where you had woman after woman after woman after woman who's come forward with very similar allegations against Kelly. And we haven't seen a cover of New York magazine with his accusers lined up saying this one she said she said she said she said she said he said maybe that's coming. But you know Jim De Rogatis, God bless him, has said this many times over that it's hard to find a person in America who matters less than young black women and girls.

AMT: The Mute R Kelly movement is being led by black women. Do you see it gathering steam nowÉ.

SORAYA MCDONALD: I do. I think the institutional support that's lent by Time's Up and particularly the women of color of Time's Up, which include Shonda Rhimes and Ava DuVernay, is extremely important because it offers amplification and magnification for these for these girls voices and for these women's voices. And that can be extremely important.

AMT: Streaming services have agreed to start promoting his music but the latest Spotify data shows that streams have actually gone up. What do you read into that?

SORAYA MCDONALD: I think that's part of a backlash that we're seeing because if we look at R Kelly sort of as part of this broader cultural MeToo moment you're starting to see that even though this is this is really only gained steam since maybe November of last year when the first stories broke about Harvey Weinstein, and you have this flow of women who keep coming forward with these truly awful allegations against powerful men. And I think after a while people, there's something about them that wants to tune out that just wants to say Can I just enjoy this. Why do I have to think about this. Why do I have to think about the ethics of this and their response to that is a backlash. Sometimes you know it can come from those who are closest to you. I mean the New York Times is really quite incredible interview with the cast of arrested development yesterday, where actress Jessica Walter was talking about this sort of abuse that she had endured on set from one of her co-stars Jeffrey Tambor who ultimately was booted off another show Transparent because of his behavior on the set. And what was so galling was that none of her male co-stars spoke up for her or rallied around her instead they excused his behavior. And so I think that's not necessarily unique. We're kind of seeing that writ large in the culture and it's going to take quite a bit of pushing to change that.

AMT: But the conversation has begun and continues, the voices of those women. Soraya McDonald thanks for your thoughts on this.

SORAYA MCDONALD: Thank you for having me.

AMT: Soraya McDonald is a culture critic with ESPN`s The Undefeated and she joined us from our studio in New York City. Well we're going to give you a bit of music now. We mentioned that our Inbee singer Aaliyah was at one point married to R. Kelly as a teenager. She eventually broke away from him. She went on to have a very successful career of her own. Tragically she died in a plane crash in 2001. This is one of Aaliyah's Greatest Hits. Try again. And in our next half hour we'll be talking about why some schools are looking for a high tech solution to the plague of school shooters. Stay with us. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti.

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[SongL Try Again by Aaliyah]

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U.S. schools turn to facial recognition technology to help stop gun attacks

Guests: Rachel Levinson-Waldman, Michael England, Jonathan Frankle

AMT: Hi I'm Anna Maria Tremonti This is The Current.

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[Music]

Normal day as it started out, then loud band. My ear started ringing another lound bang, a loud follows that one. I didn't know what it was. My mind is going crazy. I had no idea what was going on, I jumped under the desk and flipped it up in front of me. More loud bangs. I was just kind of freaking out at that point. Everybody was yelling, everybody scrambling. I peeked around. Some more loud bangs. And I was kind of freaked out at that point. I walked over at the door and I guess he walked out for a little while, I ran out of the door jumped over a wall, started running the parking lot. I had no idea I was even shot until I looked down at my shirt, I am dripping blood everywhere.

AMT: Sixteen year old Rome Schubert describing what no student should have to experience at school, but something that happens all too often in the United States. Rami Schubert was a student at Santa Fe High School in Texas where a shooting rampage last week left eight of his fellow students and two adults dead. The Santa Fe massacre came just three months after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Florida, where a young man armed with a semi-automatic rifle shot and killed 14 students and three teachers. In the face of recurring tragedy some schools are looking for some help from the technology of facial recognition. The idea is to use facial recognition software as a tool to catch potentially dangerous people trying to get into the building. Michael England is the president of St. Mary's High School in St. Louis Missouri, one of the first schools in the U.S. to install facial recognition technology on its campus. He joins us now from St. Louis hello. .

MICHAEL ENGLAND: Good Morning.

AMT: How does this facial system facial recognition system work in your school?

MICHAEL ENGLAND: We have two entrances that we have the cameras at, in our school. Front entrance and the back entrance. We leave the outer door open and we have a vestibule that is locked. And when students or anybody in our community walks into the school, they look up the camera, the camera recognize as somebody that we accept indoor school community, the lights turn green and the door unlocks and they are able to walk into the school.

AMT: When did you decide to install this?

MICHAEL ENGLAND: We did it four years ago. It was a cutting edge but the piece of technology the I liked the most was the part where someone showed up that we didn't want in our school. In those cases we would enter the picture of that person into the system. And if that person walked into the school and looked up at the camera, not only would it not open, but alerts would immediately be sent out. Everybody that we wanted the alert sent out to that this person was on our campus, and that would include administrators but also we should have to include the police department and be something that would allow us to have as quicker a first response is I think we could possibly have.

AMT: What's it like to be responsible for a school that has hundreds of students in an age where every few weeks somewhere in the U.S. students and teachers are being shot down?

MICHAEL ENGLAND: Obviously very concerning and something that I could never imagine we would see in our lifetime, much less be happening as often as it happening now. And it makes being a school administrator, it makes school safety your number one priority for all these students.

AMT: So let's talk a little bit more about this database of faces. So regular students that are in there, the camera recognizes them they can command. Who would be on who would be on your list of people not to let in?

MICHAEL ENGLAND: It normally would be a reaction to something that's going on at the school possibly. We occasionally have to deal with a divorce situation where one of the parents is not allowed access to - were are an all-boys school - who would not be allowed access to their son. In a case of expelling a student we would have to concerned with that student coming back on campus. You know it just kind of depends upon the situation but those two examples of times that we would use such a thing.

AMT: And has it actually alerted you to anyone who's been banned from the school?

MICHAEL ENGLAND: We used it four or five times, we put the picture in there to prepare ourselves if the people showed up at the school. Fortunately for us they have not shown up. But we did it has allowed us to test it out and to feel a little bit more secure knowing who's coming on our campus whether we want to have them on the campus or not.

AMT: If you have a student who is already in the school but they haven't raised red flags for you, that wouldn't stop them, would it?

MICHAEL ENGLAND: No I mean this is another layer of security here just trying to be proactive. The unfortunate situation and the reality of it as you just pointed out is that something like that could happen. And the system that we have in place would not be 100 percent foolproof, helping us with a situation such as this. So that's why we have to pay attention and we do pay attention to social media and our students are very good about alerting us if they think that there's anything, something that we should concern ourselves with. Fortunately for us we have had very very very minimal situations that have come our way. The ones that had [unintelligible].

AMT: Have you ever been alerted to something on social media and put a warning for a student's face because of that entire database?

MICHAEL ENGLAND: We have not yet had the use of such a thing. But it's interesting that I just went to a seminar just recently and ran into two gentlemen who work for [unintelligible] the security company that they worked for. And their conversation with me was about that they're interested in trying to put together a database that would be similar to a terrorism database. This one would be just specifically about school shootings. It's something that would monitor social media and other outlets that would then allow the names of possible people that might be putting something out there that gives some hint that they might be wanting to use some tactics to violence, and putting that into a database that would be shared by all schools in the area that all the schools could share. And you know try to have the game.

AMT: How do you respond to people who say using that kind of facial recognition technology would infringe on the civil rights of students?

MICHAEL ENGLAND: I say that my number one priority is the safety of my students and the safety of my school community and that's the ground that I stand on and that is my number one priority. And that priority is head and shoulders above any other priority that, it is not even close for me. So that's what I would say.

AMT: What about other options for keeping them safe?

MICHAEL ENGLAND: You know we're constantly doing drills inside the school, active shooter drills. We just started to do which through his staff which was really alarming going through the active shooter drill. We actually saw people in the building shooting [unintelligible]. We went through several different scenarios. One of the scenarios myself and one of the directors had to tackle one of the [unintelligible] shooters in the drill. So we were going through drills trying to prepare ourselves in case [unintelligible] happens, but to prepare ourselves in case we found ourselves in that situation.

AMT: Would you want to see your teachers armed?

MICHAEL ENGLAND: I'm not on board with that. It's not something that I want and I think I speak for my school community that that's not something that we want. I think that there is a certain culture of safety and community that needs to be in the school. I understand that side of it, people's thinking that how the heck we could help, should anything happened. I think overall what it does for the school community, I think it puts you [unintelligible] and I don't think it's good for anybody in our community.

AMT: Michael England. Thank you for your time today.

MICHAEL ENGLAND: You're welcome, have a good day.

AMT: Michael England president of St. Mary's High School. He's in St. Louis Missouri. Well for more on just how effective this kind of technology can be in practice I'm joined by Jonathan Frankle. He researches artificial intelligence at MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He focuses on the potential and limits of AI. Jonathan Frackle is in Cambridge Massachusetts, hello.

JONATHAN FRANKLE: Thank you so much for having me.

AMT: What do you think of what we just heard from Mr. England?

JONATHAN FRANKLE: Honestly I don't disagree with anything he said in terms of this particular deployment of facial recognition. When I think back to you know I'm fresh out of high school, I'm 25 years old, and so I experienced this reality firsthand a few years ago when I was still in high school. And when I think back to those days you know every visitor who came into school had to go to an office and go through a security procedure before signing in. And in some ways what he described as just automating that procedure. It's sad that we're in a reality where this has to take place. But to me this particular deployment of facial recognition isn't actually all that different from what we do manually today.

AMT: So you've looked at the science of facial recognition. How does it work?

JONATHAN FRANKLE: The way that facial recognition works is that we take what's called a machine learning algorithm, and what happens is it starts off kind of the same way a human brain does. It doesn't really know anything about the world. And we slowly show it pictures of faces and say these two people are the same, these two people are different and it slowly learns how to differentiate whether two people are the same or two people are different. So it's a completely automated algorithm and I'll say as a machine learning researcher, we don't fully understand how these algorithms work at a very low level. We know that they work very well and practice for the most part but we don't actually understand kind of the nuts and bolts of what this algorithm is actually doing under the hood. And to me that's cause for a lot of concern.

AMT: Well let's talk a little bit more about some of the concerns because there are issues about a bias that's built into the building of facial recognition what are they talking about?

JONATHAN FRANKLE: Definitely. So many studies at this point have found that facial recognition systems that tend to be used commercially are less accurate on people with darker skin and are also less accurate on women. Now a lot of the studies will find slightly different results but the general trend is these algorithms don't work equally well on everybody for the most part. And this could be for a number of reasons. For example during this kind of teaching process when you're teaching the algorithm how to differentiate faces if you only show at faces of people with light skin it's going to learn how to differentiate people with light skin and struggle with people with dark skin. So one problem is that we don't necessarily show it a wide enough range of examples and numerous studies have shown that these biases do seem to exist in practice.

AMT: Well that's no small thing given the biases that already exists against people of color.

JONATHAN FRANKLE: Definitely so some of the research I've done in the past has been looking at this technology in the context of American policing which as we already know has had all sorts of biases for people of color. And this is just one more way of exaggerating those biases. So it's deeply concerning to me as a researcher. This is something that's an unsolved technical problem in large part and it's something that I think about and myself and my colleagues are working on every day.

AMT: What other concerns you have about this technology?

JONATHAN FRANKLE: So I definitely have privacy concerns in general about face recognition technology. The deployment that was just described doesn't concern me all that much because it's just another form of verifying that the people who enter the building are the people you want to enter the building, whether it's done by a human being or done by a camera. It's just a matter of preference. But for these larger scale deployments that we're starting to read about where there are cameras deployed throughout a city that can recognize individuals and track wherever they go. This is an enormous privacy concern. This is a huge change in the status quo. So it concerns me just as a citizen let alone as someone who cares about privacy deeply.

AMT: How widespread is the use of of this technology now then?

JONATHAN FRANKLE: That it's much more widespread than we know about. I think that's been the lesson that I've learned every time that I hear about another deployment of this it's because some research or some journalist filed a Freedom of Information Act request or obtained some documents that showed it was being used in a place where we didn't know it was being used. A few years ago when I worked on this at the Georgetown University Law Center. One of my colleagues filed over 100 Freedom of Information Act requests to get data on the systems from police departments around the country, and we found it to be enormously widespread. More than half of all American drivers have their driver's license photo in the FBI face recognition database.

AMT: And why is it there? Just because they have access to it because it's shared?

JONATHAN FRANKLE: It's there because states have formed agreements to share this information with the FBI in hopes of being able to identify potential criminals who they see in data they've captured or in other sources of information about a crime that's been committed you can think you know security camera footage. Something along those lines so you can imagine how this serves a police purpose. But in all of these respects we need to consider not only is the privacy cost worth the law enforcement benefit but also its the financial cost worth the benefit and a lot of these deployments these systems are very expensive. I'm not sure they're all that effective.

AMT: So at the same time this technology appears to be here to stay. What kinds of safeguards do you want to see to make sure that it's not abused?

JONATHAN FRANKLE: I think it's really a matter of thinking very carefully about when the costs outweigh the benefits. For example you know if there were an emergency situation, I'm in Boston and I think back to the Boston marathon bombings a few years ago where there were two fugitives on the loose who had already caused deaths and numerous injuries. In that situation, if their face recognition cameras throughout the city turn them on and start looking for these people that say an emergency. But should those cameras be turned on doing this on a daily basis? Probably not. So it's a matter of making sure that we tailor the use of this very powerful technology to the kinds of situations where it's actually going to to have the right impact, where the costs are worth the benefits. I'm not sure that we're thinking very carefully about that right now.

AMT: Well it's good to hear your views so we can think about it a little wider thank you for your time.

JONATHAN FRANKLE: Thank you so much for having me. .

AMT: Jonathan Frankle. He researches artificial intelligence at MIT. He focuses on the potential and limits of AI and he joins us from Cambridge Massachusetts. Well facial recognition technology is a powerful tool. My final guest today has some concerns about the way it might be ultimately be used. And the legal ramifications of it all. Rachel Levinson-Waldmann serves as senior counsel to the Brennan Center's Liberty and National Security Program. She works on issues around policing social media and surveillance and she joins us from Washington D.C. Hello.

RACHEL LEVINSON-WALDMAN: Good morning.

AMT: So where do you come down on the use of facial recognition as a tool to. Let's start with stopping school shootings that kind of thing.

RACHEL LEVINSON-WALDMAN: Yes I mean I think the concern is that it's not clear at all sort of building on what the first and second guest were saying, what Mr. England. Mr. Frankle were saying. It's not clear at all that it's actually a useful tool towards stopping school shootings. One of the things that we know about school shootings is that they are largely committed by students, often current students, sometimes former students and unless there's some very strong reason to think that that person is actually going to be coming in and committing a shooting, maybe they've been expelled from school there's a protection order against them, law enforcement has been involved somehow, maybe under that circumstance their picture is going to be entered into that system that Mr. Englund described where they're going to be sort of scanned and there'll be no responses as oh there are no go to come into school. By and large that's not the case. You know these are kids who are current students. Sometimes students and teachers say oh yes we had concerns about that. Sometimes it's you know everything seemed normal and then this event happened. So it's just not clear how facial recognition would actually be a productive tool in stemming school shootings.

AMT: How can that technology infringe on the rights of students?

RACHEL LEVINSON-WALDMAN: Yes so what I think about is kind of these broader uses. Right. So not even necessarily the kind of one off you show your face, there is a decision about whether you are entered into the school or not. And then you know hopefully at that point sort of the record of your face is deleted. Really I think the concerns come in these broader scale programs that we're reading about now. So we know there is a program that's been adopted by the Lockport School District in New York that not only - it sounds like what have official recognition at the door but that there will be cameras inside the school that will be recording where students are going, producing this kind of 60 day record of a database that then administrators could go back and look and see; we're interested in finding out where this student was over the past two months. Now we're going to apply facial recognition to track you know where they are, who they're talking to, where they're going in the schools things like that. And I think that has really significant concerns in terms of student privacy in a couple of ways. One is simply you know the ability of students to have some freedom during the school day. Obviously there are restrictions within a K through 12 setting. But as the Supreme Court has said students don't shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse door.

AMT: So it's interesting. Because one could argue they could use that and look back at where that student was if that student then becomes a shooter. Right. And to understand. But you're saying that everybody gets caught in that net and who knows what they might use it for.

RACHEL LEVINSON-WALDMAN: Yes absolutely. And I think there's sort of this cost benefit. Is it conceivable that there are situations in which it would be useful to basically have a time machine of where somebody has been? Sure. That's true for the police as well but you know we have a Fourth Amendment in place that says that you don't get to sort of collect all that information in case it's useful looking back. And in the meantime both I think it's going to be chilling for students in terms of sort of their ability to move around inside a school kind of developing as a citizen in a democracy. And also as a practical matter you know all of that location information looking back maybe you see where a student who has caused some trouble or you know committed a crime where they've been. But also you're going to get a lot of information as you say about people who are totally unrelated and you might get information about well how often is a student going into a counselor's office. How often is a student seeking health services?

AMT: Well you're also going to get information on the teachers. They're under the same cameras.

RACHEL LEVINSON-WALDMAN: Absolutely. Absolutely and there doesn't seem to be any way to to opt in or opt out of the system for the teachers for the students or for parents who you'd think would want to have a voice in whether their children are getting captured this way.

AMT: Earlier this week 41 organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union asked Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to stop selling facial recognition technology to law enforcement agencies. What do you make of that?

RACHEL LEVINSON-WALDMAN: Yes I'm going I think that's a really important move. I think one of the things that it recognizes is that at this point private companies are really the ones that kind of are are managing that technological development and are really at the forefront in terms of the technology. And the concern that's raised in the letter, whether or articulate it this way is that the facial recognition that Amazon is developing is really kind of ahead of a lot of the other facial recognition that's out there. And in some ways it looks like facial recognition systems that we're seeing in China in terms of the ability to sweep in huge amounts of information. I think they say that you know Amazon's sort of sells its products saying we can look at a crowd of 100 people and identify them and basically identify them instantly. And so there are so many opportunities for misuse of that technology if it's in the hands of law enforcement.

AMT: Well it's interesting we heard from our last guest that in fact it's not good on anyone who's not white.

RACHEL LEVINSON-WALDMAN: Absolutely. And I think there are a couple of concerns here. And you spoke to this as well. Both at the technology itself is likely to be - we know from the research - is less accurate on people of color and on women. But also both in a school setting and in a law enforcement setting the way that that technology is implemented, and the point at which law enforcement is likely to be called in, that is likely to fall harder on people of color and on students of color.

AMT: And also in databases if there's that much information in the databases with the FBI what's the percentage of people who are arrested, they're never charged, they're never convicted, they'd still be in there, wouldn'they, in that file?

RACHEL LEVINSON-WALDMAN: Right. I think that's that's absolutely a concern right that there are people who have sort of contacts with the criminal justice system and much more likely to be people of color. But right. Either they're not arrested or they're arrested but not charged with a crime. You know charges are dropped or there was never any legitimate charge in the first place. And even so there could be facial shots biometrics in a system that are then sort of waiting to be mined.

AMT: Do we know of any cases where facial recognition actually prevented a crime from happening?

RACHEL LEVINSON-WALDMAN: So I think there's two pieces of this right whether facial recognition has prevented a crime and then whether facial recognition has been used to catch somebody who's committed a crime. And we know that it has been used for the latter. You know there have been stories, again in part coming out of China, about people being caught sort of at you know big public gatherings at concerts things like that. And there are those stories in the United States as well of somebody being caught, somebody being tracked down because official recognition. In terms of being used to prevent a crime, I suspect that there are some of those stories and anecdotes as well. But I do think that there's a really significant kind of cost benefit conversation to be had both about what are the costs of that and what are the protections in place? What's the transparency? What are the policies? What are the audits in circumstances where it does seem like facial recognition could be a useful tool.

AMT: You mentioned its use in China. Do we know how official recognition is being used there?

RACHEL LEVINSON-WALDMAN: So we do know from some reporting how ubiquitous facial recognition has become. The Chinese government essentially trying to build a system that would be sort of a blanket, a network of surveillance cameras with with facial recognition. That would be used not just for law enforcement purposes for it you know sort of catching people who have committed a criminal act - and that could be a pretty broad category of what could count as a criminal act - but also generally to to track people. There's an effort to create these sort of social credit scores that would make decisions about where people could live, if they could get credit, where to go to school things like that. And that facial recognition could be a part of that. And that's even been put into place for very minor infractions things like jaywalking somebody can be identified immediately via facial recognition.

AMT: So just briefly then before I let you go what do you think the future official recognition will hold for countries like Canada and the U.S.?

RACHEL LEVINSON-WALDMAN: Yes I mean I think you know the sort of upside is that we do have an opportunity here.as Mr. Frankel said, on the one hand, facial recognition increasingly is sort of in wider use than anybody realizes. On the other hand we are nowhere near the level of countries like China and others that are using this as this incredibly broad based tool. And so I think we have an opportunity to speak out and say this isn't the kind of tool that we want to be widespread and sort of used as a tool of control and actually put some policies in place around it.

AMT: Lots to think about there. Thanks for bringing us up to speed on your concerns.

RACHEL LEVINSON-WALDMAN: Thanks so much for having me.

AMT: Rachel Levinson-Waldman senior counsel to the Brennan Center's Liberty and National Security Program. She joined us from Washington D.C. That is our program for today. Day with Radio 1 for Q that's going to be live music from Canadian Indie supergroup Broken Social Scene. A reminder you can always take The Current with you to go on the CBC Radio app free from the App Store or Google Play. Finally we started the show today with a look at the burgeoning world of video game e-ports. Earlier this month the worlds of e-sports and traditional sports collided. Boston Red Sox pitcher and former Toronto Blue Jays David Price was diagnosed with a very real injury and the video game Fortnite may be just the cause. We're going to go out with the crew at Fox Sports San Diego, offering an explanation. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Thanks for listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: What a strange story around a video game, Scott.

VOICE 2: Yes. Price had some numbness in his hands earlier in the year. Well he thought it was due to cold weather. He's had a lifelong circulatory problem. The problem is that it came back a week ago and diagnosed as carpal tunnel syndrome. And he admitted to, in a story on the Athletics News site that he has been playing three hours a day a Fortnite and now there's speculation it might be video game related, the carpal tunnel syndrome.

VOICE 1: That a sign of the times [unintelligible].

VOICE 2: Guys have been carrying their XBox with them, at least when I was still playing and that was three years ago. So I don't think it's anything new. It just blows them to be unable to take care of business. You're going to be up to three in the morning or whatever time you're up. You got to come in and produce...

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Thursday May 24, 2018 Full Text Transcript

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