Amazon Senses US Isn't Currently Receptive To Its Cop Tech, Puts Rekognition On Mothballs For A Year

from the choosing-your-battles dept

Amazon has spent a few years courting cops with its proprietary facial recognition tech. Documents obtained by the ACLU in 2018 showed the supermassive company was seeking to get a cut of law enforcement's billions by giving them steep discounts on Rekognition, Amazon's branded surveillance tech.

Unfortunately for Americans who may be subjected to this tech, Amazon's brand of facial recognition remains unproven. Tests run by the ACLU managed to get several Congressional reps mistaken for criminals. Amazon responded to the false positives by claiming the ACLU didn't run it at the right accuracy setting. ACLU went with "80% confidence," which is something the tech allows. Amazon claimed only results obtained at the "95% confidence" setting mattered, even though the company does not tell law enforcement to only run Rekognition at that setting.

Amazon has taken a lot of criticism for its tech and its law enforcement hard-sell. It has also taken heat for Rekognition's apparent faults. But it has basically responded with silence. And it had a chance to prove its tech could actually recognize faces, but it chose to sit out NIST's study of more than 80 facial recognition algorithms. Rekognition's accuracy remains unproven.

At long last, Amazon has put its finger to the wind. And it has discovered the air is on fire. Giving cops more surveillance tech is about as popular as most cops at the moment. Rekognition may not be able to accurately recognize faces, but Amazon seems to have a handle on recognizing the obvious: now is not the time for more surveillance tech. From Amazon's blog:

We’re implementing a one-year moratorium on police use of Amazon’s facial recognition technology. We will continue to allow organizations like Thorn, the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and Marinus Analytics to use Amazon Rekognition to help rescue human trafficking victims and reunite missing children with their families.

There are a couple of caveats here: the moratorium does not say it applies to other government users that may not be strictly law enforcement agencies. And the moratorium is being put in place to give Congress time to act. Congress may not get anything done in the next year, which means Rekognition could be opened up for business with no meaningful changes.

Then there's this:

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.

First off, Amazon has hardly been the most vocal advocate of stronger facial recognition tech regulations. Second, this sort of largesse should always be viewed skeptically. When a dominant player in the field calls for more regulation, it's usually with an eye on ensuring it remains dominant. Demanding Congress do something mainly means "do something that our competitors won't be able to comply with." Facial recognition is a crowded field. NIST's study examined 89 different algorithms. Getting Congress to clear out the field a bit is always helpful.

But there's hardly any downside there. We need fewer purveyors of surveillance tech, not more. If it eliminates a few Clearviews, we're probably all better off. But all the same, be wary of large companies calling for more regulation. It usually means they're looking to harm their competitors, rather than become more ethical themselves.

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Filed Under: facial recognition, moratorium, police, privacy, regulations, rekognition
Companies: amazon


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  • icon
    Norahc (profile), 11 Jun 2020 @ 1:27pm

    TLDR: Amazon mothballing Rekognition until no one is looking.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 12 Jun 2020 @ 9:43am

      Re:

      TLDR: Get rid of your Amazon spying crap now, and advise others to do the same. If they ask why point them to this story.

      Anyone dumb enough to keep that crap around with Amazon so eager to open it up to anyone and everyone deserves public ridicule.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Pixelation, 11 Jun 2020 @ 4:57pm

    "Tests run by the ACLU managed to get several Congressional reps mistaken for criminals."

    "mistaken". I don't think that word means what you think it means.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    bobob, 11 Jun 2020 @ 5:16pm

    Must be a real astute bunch at amazon for them to take so long to realize this - even more so to just "mothball" it thinking it might be more popular in a year.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Tin-Foil-Hat, 12 Jun 2020 @ 12:38am

    ....

    I think you missed a couple of k's in the spelling of the brand name.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Bloof (profile), 12 Jun 2020 @ 2:44am

    So brave of them, not selling a broken, easily abused technology to people who'd abuse it while they'll face pushback fir doing so. So brave of them promising to wait a year for the heat to die down then shift the blame to legislators for not stopping them. No doubt while pumping millions into lobbying efforts to block any attempts at legislation that will stop them.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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