Amazon halts police use of its facial recognition technology

Carolyn Adolph

June 10, 2020 / 3:58 pm

caption: In this Oct. 31 photo, a man has his face painted to represent efforts to defeat facial recognition. It was during a protest at Amazon headquarters over the company's facial recognition system.

The company says it is imposing a one-year moratorium on police use of Amazon's facial recognition technology.

In a statement on its blog, Amazon said:

"We’ve advocated that governments should put in place stronger regulations to govern the ethical use of facial recognition technology, and in recent days, Congress appears ready to take on this challenge. We hope this one-year moratorium might give Congress enough time to implement appropriate rules, and we stand ready to help if requested."

The company has withstood years of criticism from civil rights and immigrant groups who say facial recognition technology gives police powerful tools to harm the undocumented. Advocates point to evidence that the technology is frequently inaccurate and can lead to misidentification.

Amazon's announcement comes days after IBM, another tech company, wrote to Congress saying it would abandon its facial recognition technology, decrying the technology's potential to promote racial discrimination and injustices.

However, Amazon said it will continue to allow organizations like Thorn, the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and Marinus Analytics to use Amazon's facial recognition product, Rekognition, to find missing children and victims of human trafficking.

Last week, Amazon said it would donate $10 million to “organizations that are working to bring about social justice and improve the lives of Black and African Americans.” The ACLU Foundation was one of them.

The American Civil Liberties Union has been a harsh critic of Amazon's sale of Rekognition to police forces, as well as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE.

The American Civil Liberties Union in Seattle says it questions whether the moratorium on police use is enough.

"If Amazon is truly committed to racial justice, it does have to follow up with some serious introspection about its role in systems of racial oppression," said Jennifer Lee, head of the ACLU's Technology & Liberty Project.

Lee said Amazon should reconsider selling facial recognition to federal agencies like U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and its promotion of Ring video doorbells which Lee says fuel systemic racism.