Google Pixel 7a

A 'Pixel 7a' mobile phone, manufactured by the technology company, Google. The Pixel 7 range of phones were the first to be developed using a new colour scale, designed to better represent human skin tones in photographs taken and processed using the device.

In the design of the camera and photographic technology of this phone, Google incorporated research by Professor Ellis Monk to better represent human skin tones.

The development of analogue imagining technologies, digital photography and AI driven imaging systems has historically been biased towards representation of lighter skin tones. This has created an intrenched racial bias in photographic technology. As the applications of photographic technology have become increasingly more widespread, the harms caused by skin tone bias have accelerated.

Software companies have since faced pressure to design solutions to the issue of racial bias in digital imaging systems. In 2021 Google announced ‘Real Tone’ a series of improvements made to the companies’ image detection, camera and editing products. Real Tone was Launched initially as part of the Pixel 6 – and improved by the incorporation of the Monk Skin Tone scale in the pixel 7. The Monk Skin Tone Scale was developed by the sociologist, Professor Ellis Monk. Previously, computer vision systems had been developed using image scales that weren’t designed to develop machine learning systems. For example, computer systems used scales developed as diagnostic tools in dermatology, such as the Fitzpatrick Scale (FST). The FTS was initially designed in 1975 to assess UV-sensitivity, and has been found to have a poor dynamic range for darker skin tones.

To develop a new scale, Monk surveyed thousands of adults in the United States to ‘learn if people felt more represented by the MST Scale compared to other scales’. Monk’s research was ‘explicitly designed to capture variation in human skin colour in the Americas, and beyond.