You can't refuse to be scanned by ICE's facial recognition app, DHS document say

> “ICE officials have told us that an apparent biometric match by Mobile Fortify is a ‘definitive’ determination of a person’s status and that an ICE officer may ignore evidence of American citizenship—including a birth certificate—if the app says the person is an alien,”

This is "computer says no (not a citizen)". Which is horrifying

They've just created an app to justify what they were already doing right? And the argument will be "well it's a super complex app run by a very clever company so it can't be wrong"?

Just like IBM said, a computer can't be held responsible for its decisions. Management's been doing this for a long time to justify layoffs and such. This is just the next step.

Increasingly a human can't be held responsible for their decisions either.

Accountability literally means "being forced to give an account of your decisions", i.e. explain the reasons behind why you made the choices you did. The idea is that when you have a public forum of people with common values, merely being forced to explain yourself will activate mechanisms of shame, guilt, and conformism that keep people inline. Otherwise you'll face the judgment of your peers.

This mechanism breaks down when your peers don't hold common values. If nobody agrees on what right and wrong are, you just find different peers until somebody thinks that what you're doing is right. Or you just don't care and figure solipsism vs. the status quo is just a matter of degree.