Google Pulled The Plug On Field Research Targeting Homeless People

Google was recently accused of partnering with an agency whose employees walked on the streets of several US cities to ask homeless people whether they would want to sell their facial data and receive $5 gift certificates in return.

It seems like the controversial field research has been suspended by the firm. After the Daily News reported the story, Google immediately pulled the plug on the program and carried out an investigation.

In a statement, a spokesman of Google said that the company is taking these claims seriously. The company admitted that to collect samples of faces with a wide range of diversity, it had hired Randstad-a staffing agency.

Explaining its reason, Google executives wrote in an email that the company’s goal is to come up with a fair and secure feature which will work with different face shapes and skin tones.

They, however, described the tactics of the agency as “very disturbing,” while revealing that Google had requested the agency to be transparent and truthful with the volunteers.

They stated that it is extremely important to be transparent and not misleading participants.

It has been revealed that the facial scans of the volunteers were deleted immediately after the research was completed.

Google claims that the research’s goal was to make sure that the new Face Unlock feature of the Pixel 4 would work fairly and not bias against people with darker skin tones, which is supposed to be a legitimate concern and worth-it-goal.

However, whether the firm selected the wrong method depends on how much the company knew about the dodgy techniques of Randstad. If what the spokesmen of the tech giant told was true, then the firm had no idea what happened.

Still, Google may want to keep a close eye on its contractors.