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Google has suspended a field study with which it tried to improve its facial recognition system with the help of people from the United States to whom it gave a five-dollar gift voucher. The company canceled this program after the New York Daily News denounced that Randstad , one of the subcontractors responsible for carrying it out, was actively using the homeless.

The company had already admitted a few months ago to be conducting a study of these characteristics. His next phone, Pixel 4, will be unlocked using facial recognition and Google, apparently, wanted to make sure that this system had no problems recognizing all kinds of faces , so they needed "a diverse sample", something "very important" to build "an inclusive product," a spokesman told The Guardian.

Now the firm has admitted in statements to the New York Times that it has suspended the program and opened an investigation. Although he did not confirm the reasons for this suspension, he admitted working with Randstad and said the details published were "very worrying."

Of course, the company also maintains that it explained to all its researchers that they should be transparent when contacting the people who would participate in the study.

In the Daily News report, the subcontractor was accused of employing homeless people because it was more difficult for them to denounce the situation and to use deceptive techniques so that they did not know the true purpose of the study. Thus, in some cases these people would have been told that it was an application similar to Snapchat or that they only needed to play with the phone for a few minutes to receive their voucher.

At the moment Google has not suspended the program permanently, but only while conducting the investigation. Randstad, meanwhile, has not commented on it.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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