Racial slur in CAPTCHA code on state website prompts Georgia, Microsoft to investigate
An “offensive” security code that appeared on a state website used to schedule COVID-19 tests was an error, the Georgia Department of Public Health says.
The issue was made public Wednesday after an Atlanta-area woman shared screenshots of a CAPTCHA code generated after pre-registering on the state’s scheduling site. The CAPTCHA, a computer-generated code used to tell robots apart from humans to prevent spamming, spelled out a racial slur used against African-Americans, according to photos posted to Twitter.
“How does this even happen??? As a confirmation cache?!,” user @DanieEve wrote, tagging the Georgia DPH directly.
The department has since addressed the incident and said the matter is being investigated.
“A Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) website for scheduling COVID-19 tests experienced an issue late this afternoon when it displayed an offensive computer-generated CAPTCHA code,” DPH spokesperson Nancy Nydam told McClatchy News in an email. “The code, which DPH has no control over, is used by Microsoft to determine whether a user is real or a spam robot. At DPH’s urgent request, Microsoft has assigned a team to investigate and rectify the problem to ensure it does not happen again.”
“DPH joins all those who were offended by this randomly generated display and is pressing Microsoft to explain why safeguards were not in place to have prevented this from happening in the first place,” Nydam added.
@DanieEve, who declined to provide her full name, said the incident left her feeling “devastated and hurt.”
“We’re in the middle of so many challenges right now with racism and Black people facing higher counts of COVID cases around this country,” she told McClatchy News. “To log into a state website and have a racial slur while doing your best to get tested for COVID was disheartening.”
“It just shows that there are systemic issues and challenges that just won’t be fixed any time soon,” she added.
The Peach State, like much of the U.S., has seen a resurgence of new coronavirus cases in recent weeks.
On Wednesday, the Georgia DPH reported 3,420 additional cases, pushing the state’s total to more than 103,000. The virus has also been linked to nearly 3,000 deaths across the state, data show.
A growing number of cities have begun issuing mask mandates to help slow the spread of the virus. Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms signed an order Wednesday requiring face masks in public, joining Savannah, Athens, and other Georgia cities that have put similar rules in place, McClatchy News reported.
So far, the state has conducted more than a million coronavirus tests and more than 171,000 anti-body tests, according to the Georgia DPH.
