Facial recognition, Amazon’s definitive step on Rekognition
Amazon has made an indefinite ban on the use of its facial recognition software, Rekognition, by the US police
Police ban on using Amazon Rekognition facial recognition technology “until further notice”.
Jeff Bezos' e-commerce giant said Tuesday that it is extending until further notice a moratorium it imposed last year on police use of its facial recognition software . Reuters reported.
Like Amazon, Microsoft also announced to suspend the sale of its technology to the police until the United States passes a law governing its use. The position of IBM, which definitively left the facial recognition sector last year, is different.
The stances have come as tech companies face greater scrutiny over their contracts with the police. In the background, the repressions by the police of the protests of the Black Lives Matter movements in June 2020.
Civil liberties advocates have long warned that inaccurate facial confrontation by law enforcement could lead to unfair arrests. Without forgetting a lesser protection of privacy.
The Seattle tech giant did not comment on the reason for its decision. Also in Italy there is discussion about the use of facial recognition technology by the police. Recently, the Privacy Guarantor rejected the use of the Sari Real Time facial recognition system by the Ministry of the Interior. And the deputy Pd Filippo Sensi filed a bill calling for a moratorium on the use of facial recognition technologies in public places.
AMAZON'S DECISION ON REKOGNITION
The e-commerce giant will prevent the police from using its facial recognition software indefinitely.
Amazon offers facial recognition with "Rekognition," a service from its cloud computing division. Customers who rely on the program to find victims of human trafficking still have access to facial recognition capabilities, the Seattle group said.
THE MORATORY OF THE LAST YEAR
Last year, Amazon suspended its use in hopes that Congress would put rules in place to ensure the technology's ethical use. In the meantime, no such law has materialized.
THE LAW FORCES IN THE UNITED STATES THAT RELY ON FACIAL RECOGNITION
An unknown number of police departments use facial recognition systems to track down potential suspects, CNN reported. Although the technology has proven to be less accurate in identifying people of color.
PRIVACY ACTIVISTS PRESSURES
Amazon also received calls this month from activists who wanted the software ban to be permanent.
Nathan Freed Wessler of the American Civil Liberties Union expressed support for Amazon's move and called on federal and state governments to ban law enforcement use of the software.
"Facial recognition technology fuels excessive surveillance of black and brown communities, and has already led to the false arrests and wrongful imprisonment of more black men," a statement read. "Now, the Biden administration and legislatures across the country must further protect communities from the dangers of this technology by ending its use by law enforcement, regardless of the company selling it," said Nathan Freed. Wessler.
Perhaps the best-known of the companies selling facial recognition technology is US-based Clearview AI, which was already targeted by regulators last year . The latter has built a large database of faces with images of people from social networks. In 2020, its founder said in an interview that the system had been licensed to over 600 law enforcement agencies.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/riconoscimento-facciale-il-passo-definitivo-di-amazon-su-rekognition/ on Wed, 19 May 2021 12:24:40 +0000.