Amazon too critiques its policy on law enforcement make use of its face-reputation tech amid #BLM
13 June, 2020
Amazon on Wednesday announced a one-time ban on letting police use its facial recognition technology, calling for strong federal government regulations for its ethical use.
The moratorium comes after repeated calls by critics and racial justice groups for Amazon’s cloud computing unit to stop providing police and immigration officials with tools that can be used to unfairly target people based on race.
“We’re implementing a good one-year moratorium on police usage of Amazon’s facial reputation technology,” the Seattle-based computing and retail titan said in a blog post.
“We expectation this one-time moratorium might give Congress plenty of time to implement appropriate guidelines, and we stand ready to help if requested.”
The announcement came after a coalition of racial justice groups this week launched an online petition calling for Amazon to cut all ties with police and US immigration officials.
The petition takes aim at Amazon Web Companies cloud computing unit’s “Rekognition” facial recognition technology and Ring surveillance cameras applied for home security.
“Amazon must examine its structural purpose in the systemic oppression of black people,” said Mass media Justice campaign approaches director Myaisha Hayes.
Amazon’s “surveillance empire” could possibly be used by law enforcement to target people by race, making the company complicit in such abuse, Press Justice and different petition backers argued.
It was not yet determined to what level Rekognition was employed by police or immigration organizations.
Ring cameras sold by Amazon are being used for security, but people can share access to surveillance video with police if they wish.
Amazon said organizations such as the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Kids and Marinus Analytics should be able to continue working with Amazon Rekognition to help rescue individual trafficking victims and reunite missing kids with their families.
“We’ve advocated that governments should set up stronger regulations to govern the ethical usage of facial recognition technology,” Amazon said on the post.
“And in recent days, Congress appears ready to undertake this challenge.”
Amazon shareholders this past year rejected proposals to prohibit revenue of facial reputation technology to governments and study how it could threaten privacy or civil rights.
The failed proposals were help with by several shareholders but opposed by the board of directors at Seattle-based Amazon.
IBM this week said it really is no more selling general purpose face recognition program and is opposed to working with such technology for racial profiling or perhaps mass surveillance.
The century-old technology firm needed responsible countrywide standards regarding how facial recognition systems ought to be utilized by police agencies.
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