Law enforcement officials arestill bannedfrom using Amazon ’s facial realisation applied science “ until further notice , ” the society enounce on Wednesday , a decision that efficaciously stretch out a yearlong moratorium that had been set to expire on June 1 .
Known as Rekognition , the program in question has been widely criticized over the years for its doubtful efficacy — it onceincorrectly identified28 members of Congress as malefactor — and its propensity to , surprise surprise , disproportionately misidentify char and mass of color . In 2019,two independent studiesconcluded that Rekognition ’s facial recognition software did , in fact , return inaccurate or biased issue , and some police precincts even objected to using the software on the ground that it give off “ a Big Brother vibration . ”
But despite those concerns , Rekognition was still being utilized by law of nature enforcement until June 2020 , when Amazon finally bowed to develop calls from its own employee who worried that the program ’s documented biases could lead to increased police violence against marginalized groups . In heeding those calls , Amazon announced the yearlong moratorium on usance of the technical school by police node , which prompted challenger Microsoft to similarly herald that it would put a hold on the use of its facial recognition tech by police until there were Union regulations governing its use .
Photo: PHILIPPE LOPEZ / Contributor (Getty Images)
In a statement emerge at the metre of the moratorium , Amazon order that it had “ advocate that governments should put in place firm rule to govern the honourable use of facial acknowledgment technology . ”
“ We go for this one - year moratorium might give Congress enough sentence to apply appropriate regulation , and we stand quick to help if call for , ” the instruction continued .
But while a issue of states and localities have taken it upon themselves to ban or restrict the use of facial realisation tech by police force in late years — San Francisco became the first in 2019 , and was followed soon after by Oakland , Oregon , Maine and Massachusetts — no Union legislation regulating its usance currently exists .
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