Rekognition
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Amazon extends ban on police use of its facial recognition software
Reuters reports that 'until further notice' Amazon will continue to bar police departments from using its Rekognition platform
Amazon places 'moratorium' on police use of its facial recognition tech
Amazon will put a 'moratorium' on use of its Rekognition facial recognition tech to give Congress time to implement new ethics laws.
‘Frontline’ documentary tackles Jeff Bezos and the ‘Amazon Empire’
Amazon is the subject of the latest Frontline documentary, which airs on PBS today at 9PM ET and is probably worth checking out if you have any interest in the tech giant. From the same team that was behind a 2018 Frontline examination of Facebook, Amazon Empire: The Rise and Reign of Jeff Bezos charts the rise of Bezos and his company from shipping books from a Washington garage in the mid-'90s through to its current status as a trillion-dollar colossus.
Amazon wants to write the rules regulating facial recognition tech
Amazon is drafting laws to regulate facial recognition technology, Vox reports. Supposedly, the company hopes that federal lawmakers will adopt its proposal as legislation. "Our public policy team is actually working on facial recognition regulations; it makes a lot of sense to regulate that," CEO Jeff Bezos said in an appearance following Amazon's hardware event yesterday.
Amazon says its facial recognition tech can identify fear in people's faces
Amazon says its contentious facial recognition technology can now detect fear in people's faces. That makes it the eighth emotion it can identify along with happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, disgust, calmness and confusion. In addition, Amazon says it has improved Rekognition's age range estimation accuracy, so customers can get narrower age ranges "across most age groups."
Orlando won't use Amazon's facial recognition software anymore
Orlando has canceled Amazon's facial recognition pilot following a series of technical problems and other issues, according to Orlando Weekly. The city started testing the facial recognition software -- which, according to a study, shows gender and race bias and tends to misidentify dark-skinned women -- back in 2017. After the first trial period expired in mid-2018, local officials showed hesitation in renewing the partnership before deciding to go through with a second pilot. Looks like the second go was just as unsatisfactory, though, because a memo sent to the City Council reportedly said the pilot didn't make "noticeable progress" and that Orlando doesn't have immediate plans to launch more facial recognition trials.
Lawmakers call for regulation of facial recognition tech
A bipartisan group of lawmakers is calling for regulations to restrict the use of facial recognition technology before "it gets out of control," according to the Washington Post. Members of the Congressional House Oversight and Reform Committee held a hearing on the topic today, during which legislators from across the political spectrum expressed concern over the use of software that is used to identify individuals, raising questions as to the technology's accuracy and its impact on privacy and civil rights.
Amazon investors reject call to limit facial recognition system sales
Amazon shareholders have voted against a proposal to limit the company from selling its facial recognition technology to law enforcement and government agencies. The proposal, which highlighted concerns over the Rekognition system related to "civil and human rights and shareholder value," failed to pass at Amazon's annual investor meeting Wednesday, on the same day the House Oversight Committee held a hearing on facial recognition tech.
San Francisco could be the first US city to ban facial recognition tech (updated)
The Chinese government has drawn widespread condemnation in recent months over its extensive use of public surveillance and facial recognition technology to monitor the movements of some 12 million Muslim citizens. "It's a 'Muslim tracker' funded by Chinese authorities in the province of Xinjiang to keep track of Uyghur Muslims," Victor Gevers, co-founder of GDI Foundation, a non-profit open-internet advocacy group, wrote on Twitter in February. Facial recognition tracking has received its fair share of criticism here in the US as well -- even as companies like Amazon field test their half-baked AIs with police departments across the country -- and may soon spawn the nation's first outright ban on the technology.
Amazon shareholders will vote to ban facial recognition tech
Amazon shareholders will vote to ban the company's controversial facial recognition technology next week in a key symbolic process. Amazon set the vote date, May 22nd, after the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rejected the company's request to have the motion squashed. A group of shareholders, led by nonprofit Open MIC, asked Amazon's board to stop selling the deep learning tools until a third party can confirm "it does not cause or contribute to actual or potential violations of human rights."
Amazon joins Microsoft in calling for regulation of facial recognition tech
Faced with mounting criticism of its "Rekognition" system, Amazon has come out in favor of legislating facial recognition technology. In a blog post, the company has revealed its "proposed guidelines" for the responsible use of the tech that it hopes policymakers in the US and worldwide will consider when drafting new laws.
Amazon's facial-analysis tool showed gender and race bias, says study
Research suggests Amazon's facial analysis algorithms have struggled with gender and racial bias. The MIT Media Lab found Rekognition had no trouble at all in correctly pinpointing the gender of lighter-skinned men but it classified women as men almost a fifth of the time and darker-skinned women as men on almost one out of three occasions. IBM and Microsoft software performed better than Amazon's tool -- Microsoft's solution mistakenly thought darker-skinned women were men 1.5 percent of the time.
Shareholders ask Amazon to halt sales of facial recognition tech
A group of Amazon shareholders has filed a resolution requesting the company stop selling its facial recognition technology to government agencies until a review can determine whether it has the potential to violate civil rights. Organized by the non-profit Open MIC and filed by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Brentwood, the resolution is supported by a total of five shareholder groups that hold $1.32 billion of Amazon shares.
Google pledges to hold off on selling facial recognition technology
Today, Google shared information about some of the AI work it's doing in Asia, but in a blog post about the work, it also made a pretty clear statement about how its facial recognition technology will and won't be used for the time being. The company noted that while facial recognition systems stand to be quite useful in a variety of situations, from assistive technologies to locating missing people, they also comes with risks. "Like many technologies with multiple uses, facial recognition merits careful consideration to ensure its use is aligned with our principles and values, and avoids abuse and harmful outcomes," Google said. "We continue to work with many organizations to identify and address these challenges, and unlike some other companies, Google Cloud has chosen not to offer general-purpose facial recognition APIs before working through important technology and policy questions."
Microsoft details principles that guide its facial recognition work
In July, Microsoft President Brad Smith published a blog post discussing some of the challenges and risks surrounding facial recognition technology and how his company plans to address them. He said Microsoft was working on developing a set of guiding principles to direct the development of its own technology and this week, he shared what those principles are. In a new blog post, Smith described six principles that he says will govern Microsoft's work while it continues to advocate for legislation that will more concretely guide this technology as a whole.
Lawmakers still want details from Amazon on its facial recognition tech
In July, three members of Congress -- Senator Ed Markey (D-MA), Representative Luis Gutiérrez (D-IL) and Representative Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA) -- sent Amazon and CEO Jeff Bezos a letter requesting information about the company's facial recognition software, Rekognition. The lawmakers expressed their concern about Rekognition and asked Amazon to answer a list of questions regarding any bias assessments Amazon has performed, if it can recognize when children's data have been uploaded, the agencies that have used the software and whether Amazon conducts audits of those that use Rekognition. Amazon sent a response to the lawmakers in August, but the lawmakers found the company's reply to be insufficient. So they've sent a second letter.
Amazon pitched ICE on its facial recognition technology
Amazon has faced pushback, both internally and externally, for selling its Rekognition facial recognition technology to law enforcement. It's a move the company's own employees said would "serve to harm the most marginalized." Now, The Daily Beast reports that Amazon met with ICE officials in June, and it pitched the agency on Rekognition.
Congress seeks more info on Amazon's facial-recognition tech
Yesterday, the ACLU published a report showing that Amazon's Rekognition facial mapping software could have some serious problems with accuracy. A test scanned every current member of the House and Senate and compared them to a database of 25,000 mug shots -- and matched 28 of those lawmakers with various mugshots. It hasn't taken long for some politicians to craft a response. Senator Edward Markey (D-MA) and Representatives Luis Gutiérrez (D-IL 4th district) and Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA 11th district) sent a letter to Amazon and Jeff Bezos asking for more information on Rekogntion, specifically concerning its sale to law enforcement agencies. Today's letter from Markey, Gutiérrez and DeSaulnier said that "the efficacy and impact of [facial recognition] technology are not yet fully understood," going on to note that "serious concerns have been raised about the dangers facial recognition can pose to privacy and civil rights, especially when it is used as a tool of government surveillance." Other concerns include its accuracy as well as the "disproportionate impact on communities of color." Between all these concerns and the ACLU's report about Rekognition's reliability problems, Markey, Gutiérrez and DeSaulnier have submitted a number of questions to Amazon. First among the information the senator and representatives are seeking are any internal accuracy or bias assessments that Amazon itself has performed. Specifically they're looking to have that data broken down by race, gender, skin pigmentation and age; the group is also asking for details on how Amazon has tested for accuracy and bias and if those tests have been independently verified. They're also interested if Rekognition can recognize whether the data uploaded to its system includes children under the age of 13, something that would require Amazon to be following the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. Other requests include info on all the agencies that use or have used Rekognition as well as any that have contacted Amazon about it. Additionally, Markey, Gutiérrez and DeSaulnier are looking to find out if Amazon conducts any audits on how various law enforcement agencies use Rekognition to make sure it isn't being misused. Finally, they want to know if and how the software is being used in conjunction with "police body-camera technology" or any other "public-facing camera networks." This isn't the first such grilling Amazon has received by the hands of the government; earlier this year, two more Democrats from the House of Representatives sent similar requests to Amazon and Bezos. What the response was hasn't been revealed yet, but Markey, Gutiérrez and DeSaulnier are looking for a response by August 20th.
Amazon's facial recognition identified lawmakers as lawbreakers
The ACLU put Amazon's Rekognition facial scanning software to the test and the results were more than a little troubling. Comparing "every current member of the House and Senate" against a database of 25,000 publicly available mugshots, Amazon's software identified 28 lawmakers as folks who'd been arrested for a crime. The test cost $12.33.
Orlando didn't renew its facial recognition contract with Amazon
The Orlando Police Department is one of the law enforcement groups that has been testing Amazon's facial recognition service Rekognition, using it in its headquarters and in downtown Orlando, though supposedly only with officers that agreed to test the system. However, the pilot program expired last week and the department says it has not yet decided whether it will continue to use the facial recognition technology. "Staff continues to discuss and evaluate whether to recommend continuation of the pilot at a further date. At this time that process in still ongoing and the contract with Amazon remains expired," the city of Orlando and the police department said this week in a joint statement given to Floridapolitics.com.
