After a 2-year battle with activists, Amazon pauses police use of facial recognition tech
The death of George Floyd has fanned worries that facial recognition would be used unfairly against protesters.
By Reuters | Updated:
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Amazon said it would continue to permit the technology's use by customers that help law enforcement find human trafficking victims.
Amazon.com Inc on Wednesday said it was implementing a one-year moratorium on police use of its facial recognition software, halting a business it long defended as many protested law enforcement brutality against people of color.
The decision culminates a two-year battle between Amazon and civil liberties activists, who have voiced concern that inaccurate matches could lead to unjust arrests.
The death of George Floyd, a black man who died under the knee of a white police officer last month, has fanned worries that facial recognition would be used unfairly against protesters.
Critics have pointed to a past study showing Amazon's "Rekognition" service struggled to identify the gender of individuals with darker skin, research that Amazon has contested.
The company, which sells cloud computing technology via its Amazon Web Services division, said in a statement it has pushed for regulations to ensure the software was used ethically.
"We hope this one-year moratorium might give Congress enough time to implement appropriate rules, and we stand ready to help if requested," Amazon said.
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Congress has been weighing possible regulation of the technology for months. On Monday, IBM wrote lawmakers to say it no longer is offering facial recognition generally, while rival Microsoft Corp has turned down some sales and backed regulations but not a moratorium.
Nicole Ozer, technology and civil liberties director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, gave Amazon credit while calling for a more "blanket" moratorium. Critics have pointed to a past study showing Amazon's "Rekognition" service struggled to identify the gender of individuals with darker skin. "Face recognition technology gives governments the unprecedented power to spy on us," Ozer said in a statement. "We urge Microsoft and other companies to join IBM, Google, and Amazon in moving towards the right side of history."
Microsoft spokespeople did not immediately answer a request for comment.
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Amazon, due to its prominence and defense of facial recognition, has faced the brunt of criticism, giving symbolic significance to its announcement. Still, firms such as Idemia and NEC Corp are known to have more facial recognition government business. Private-sector sales of Rekognition accounted for around $3 million of Amazon's $25.7 billion in cloud revenue in 2018, according to news site The Information.
One law enforcement user of Rekognition said Amazon was "throwing us under the bus." Agencies generally have said they use facial recognition for post-crime investigations, not real-time monitoring.
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"After over and over again saying that they stand by us and how we use the tech, they are making it seem like all of a sudden they don't think we use it right," the person said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Amazon said it would continue to permit the technology's use by customers that help law enforcement find human trafficking victims.
Virtual Meetings, 5G & Shared Spectrum: Top 5 Technology Trends We Will Get To See In The Post-Covid World
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The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted the life and lifestyles of people across the globe.
In this new reality, communication technology offers solutions to overcome some of the challenges thrown up by the pandemic. With social distancing and working from home becoming the new reality, tech trends will have to update. Parag Naik, Co-Founder & CEO, Saankhya Labs tells us what trends in tech we can expect in a post-Covid world.
The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted the life and lifestyles of people across the globe.In this new reality, communication technology offers solutions to overcome some of the challenges thrown up by t..
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Already, applications like Zoom and Google Meet have seen a sudden spurt in users. From meetings with only 4-5 participants, to huge international seminars and conferences with thousands of participants all have already moved online. This trend is likely to continue in the post Covid world as people maintain social distancing etiquette
Already, applications like Zoom and Google Meet have seen a sudden spurt in users. From meetings with only 4-5 participants, to huge international seminars and conferences with thousands of participa..
Read More
Dedicated education apps have witnessed a huge spurt in growth as students are learning concepts on their mobile phones. A few colleges have also conducted tests online. It is expected that some of these trends will continue in the post Covid period as well.
Many universities and school education boards have recommended that schools and colleges should attempt to complete some portion of the curriculum online, even after the situation becomes normal.
Dedicated education apps have witnessed a huge spurt in growth as students are learning concepts on their mobile phones. A few colleges have also conducted tests online. It is expected that some of t..
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With the increasing demand for faster and higher bandwidth networks, due to remote working, 5G which is the next generation network designed with “Service Based” architecture might get adopted faster.
5G provides greater quality of service based on the network ‘Slice”, which caters to a particular service type, such as IoT, Low latency applications etc.
With the increasing demand for faster and higher bandwidth networks, due to remote working, 5G which is the next generation network designed with “Service Based” architecture might get adopted faster..
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Technology trends make it clear that in a post Covid world, more content will be watched and consumed on mobile devices, be it in form of video conferencing for a meeting, an online class, or Video for entertainment. Even before the pandemic, video occupied over 70% of the content transmitted over the mobile network.
This will rise exponentially in the post Covid world and will overburden mobile networks which are not designed to handle such load. To prevent network congestion and improve user experience, the communication companies will use “Shared” spectrum.
Technology trends make it clear that in a post Covid world, more content will be watched and consumed on mobile devices, be it in form of video conferencing for a meeting, an online class, or Video f..
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Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) will be playing an increased role in the communication solutions of the future. When communication is being done using shared spectrum AI/ML systems will be continuously monitoring the load on the various networks.
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) will be playing an increased role in the communication solutions of the future. When communication is being done using shared spectrum AI/ML syste..
