The End of Data Colonialism

A woman in Chicago types a destination into her Uber app and schedules a ride. Uber’s algorithms set the price and find a suitable driver nearby. Confirming the ride takes a few seconds longer than usual. What the customer and the driver don’t know: Uber’s realtime ID check has sounded an alarm. The driver just started his shift and was required to upload a selfie to the system. The night before, however, he shaved because it was his girlfriend’s birthday. Without a beard, the facial recognition software wasn’t sufficiently certain whether the man behind the wheel was in fact the