Computer Vision Applications and their Ethical Risks in the Global South

We present a study of recent advances in computer vision (CV) research for the Global South to identify the main uses of modern CV and its most significant ethical risks in the region. We review 55 research papers and analyze them along three principal dimensions: where the technology was designed, the needs addressed by the technology, and the potential ethical risks arising following deployment. Results suggest: 1) CV is most used in policy planning and surveillance applications, 2) privacy violations is the most likely and most severe risk to arise from modern CV systems designed for the Global South, and 3) researchers from the Global North differ from researchers from the Global South in their uses of CV to solve problems in the Global South. Results of our risk analysis also differ from previous work on CV risk perception in the West, suggesting locality to be a critical component of each risk’s importance.