Amazon called for tougher regulations to govern the ethical use of facial recognition technology. (File)
San Francisco:
Amazon announced on Wednesday a year-long ban on letting U.S. police use its facial recognition technology, calling for strict government regulation for its ethical use.
The moratorium comes after repeated calls from critics and racial justice groups to stop Amazon’s cloud computing unit from providing tools and tools to police and immigration officials that can be used to unfairly target people depending on their race.
“We are putting in place a one-year moratorium on police use of Amazon’s facial recognition technology,” the IT and retail titan in Seattle said in a blog post. .
“We hope this one-year moratorium could give Congress enough time to implement the appropriate rules, and we are ready to help if necessary.”
The announcement came after a coalition of racial justice groups launched an online petition this week calling on Amazon to cut ties with police and US immigration officials.
The petition relates to “Web Rekognition” facial recognition technology from Amazon Web Services and the Ring surveillance cameras used for home security.
“Amazon must examine its structural role in the systemic oppression of black people,” said Media Justice campaign strategy director Myaisha Hayes.
Amazon’s “surveillance empire” could be used by police to target people by race, making the company complicit in such abuses, Media Justice and other donors have argued.
It was unclear to what extent recognition was used by the police or immigration agencies.
Ring cameras sold by Amazon are used for home security, but people can share access to surveillance video with the police if they wish.
Amazon said organizations such as the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children and Marinus Analytics can continue to use Amazon Rekognition to help rescue victims of human trafficking and reunite missing children with their families.
“We have advocated that governments put in place tougher regulations to govern the ethical use of facial recognition technology,” Amazon said in the post.
“And in recent days, Congress seems ready to take on this challenge.”
Last year, Amazon shareholders rejected proposals to ban the sale of facial recognition technologies to governments and to study how they could threaten privacy or civil rights.
The failed proposals were put forward by a group of shareholders, but rejected by the Seattle-based Amazon board of directors.
IBM said this week that it no longer sells general purpose facial recognition software and objects to the use of such technology for racial profiling or mass surveillance.
The century-old tech company has called for responsible national standards for how facial recognition systems should be used by police.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
