Amazon employees, investors protest US government Rekognition sales
Efforts by Amazon to sell its Rekognition facial recognition system to US law enforcement agencies provoked a strong backlash from Amazon employees, investors and rights advocates. In May 2018, t he American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) found that Amazon had been actively marketing Rekognition to police departments and government agencies across the US, pointing out civil liberties concerns and the ease with which the technology can be misused. A month later, the ACLU delivered a petition with over 150,000 signatures to Amazon headquarters, alongside a coalition letter signed by nearly 70 digital rights organisations. The same day, 19 investor groups warned then Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos that the technology 'may not only pose a privacy threat to customers and other stakeholders across the country, but may also raise substantial risks for our Company, negatively impacting our company’s stock valuation and increasing financial risk for shareholders.' ➕ June 2018. It emerged that Amazon employees had written to Jeff Bezos asking him to stop selling Rekognition to law enforcement and to stop supporting controversial data mining company Palantir with its cloud services. ➕ October 2018. Documents obtained by the Project on Government Oversight showed that Amazon representatives had met with Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, triggering further complaints. ➕ June 2020. Amazon announced it would implement a one-year moratorium on police use of Rekognition in the US. System 🤖 Amazon Rekognition 🔗 Operator: Washington County Sheriff's Office Developer: Amazon Country: USA Sector: Govt - immigration Purpose: Control immigration Technology: Facial recognition Issue: Bias/discrimination; Human/civil rights; Privacy; Surveillance
- Date it happened
- 2018-05-01
- Organisation involved
- Washington County Sheriff's Office
- Product, system or model
- Amazon Rekognition
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