Amazon Teams Up With Law Enforcement to Deploy Dangerous New Face Recognition Technology

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: ACLU of Northern California

Amazon Teams Up With Law Enforcement to Deploy Dangerous New Face Recognition Technology

May 22, 2018

By: Matt Cagle follow @Matt_Cagle and Nicole A. Ozer follow @NicoleOzer

https://twitter.com/Matt_Cagle
http://www.twitter.com/NicoleOzer

Amazon, which got its start selling books and still bills itself as “Earth’s most customer-centric company,” has officially entered the surveillance business. ... The company has developed a powerful and dangerous new facial recognition system and is actively helping governments deploy it. Amazon calls the service “Rekognition.”

Marketing materials and documents obtained by ACLU affiliates in three states reveal a product that can be readily used to violate civil liberties and civil rights. Powered by artificial intelligence, Rekognition can identify, track, and analyze people in real time and recognize up to 100 people in a single image. It can quickly scan information it collects against databases featuring tens of millions of faces, according to Amazon.

Amazon is marketing Rekognition for government surveillance. According to its marketing materials, it views deployment by law enforcement agencies as a “common use case” for this technology. Among other features, the company’s materials describe “person tracking” as an “easy and accurate” way to investigate and monitor people. Amazon says Rekognition can be used to identify “people of interest” raising the possibility that those labeled suspicious by governments — such as undocumented immigrants or Black activists — will be seen as fair game for Rekognition surveillance. It also says Rekognition can monitor “all faces in group photos, crowded events, and public places such as airports” — at a time when Americans are joining public protests at unprecedented levels.

Amazon’s Rekognition raises profound civil liberties and civil rights concerns. Today, the ACLU and a coalition of civil rights organizations demanded that Amazon stop allowing governments to use Rekognition.

Read more: https://www.aclunc.org/blog/amazon-teams-law-enforcement-deploy-dangerous-new-face-recognition-technology

---

HerebyDemandHat Retweeted: https://twitter.com/Popehat

BREAKING: The ACLU has obtained records showing Amazon helping governments deploy a dangerous new facial recognition system that can track people in real time against huge databases. Our investigation:

Link to tweet

[Blue_Adept]

1. They entered the surveillance business awhile ago

They've had a range of products that tie into their overall ecoystem with Alexa and the like.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

3. Yeah. I'm wondering if having ACLU of NC as the source is LBN-worthy.

If the forum hosts don't think so, I'll move this to Civil Liberties. I'll go ahead and copy it there anyway.

Thanks for writing.

[Blue_Adept]

5. It'll probably get more attention in GD anyway

Mostly because of the strong anti-amazon contingent there.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

6. I already copied the OP to Civil Liberties. If the forum hosts want to close this in LBN, I

Last edited Wed May 23, 2018, 09:07 AM - Edit history (1)

can't object.

Thanks again.

[BumRushDaShow]

7. There are a couple articles about this today

WaPo one - Amazon is selling facial recognition to law enforcement — for a fistful of dollars - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/05/22/amazon-is-selling-facial-recognition-to-law-enforcement-for-a-fistful-of-dollars/?utm_term=.8d02478f19d5

NPR - Orlando Police Testing Amazon's Real-Time Facial Recognition
https://www.npr.org/2018/05/22/613115969/orlando-police-testing-amazons-real-time-facial-recognition

(if you want to swap one in)

[Initech]

2. When will Amazon deploy Skynet and get it over with?

[alwaysinasnit]

4. 1984

If this is true, we have all, consciously or unconsciously, contributed to the enrichment of Amazon. For this, labor abuses, and the damage to local small businesses, maybe it is time we stopped patronizing Amazon.

[OnlinePoker]

8. I wonder if it will be more accurate than the UK...98% inaccurate

Here's a post from a couple of weeks ago that I posted about it.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210611746

[TheBlackAdder]

9. A British firm developed a process to identify faces in a room from reflections of people eyes.

[EarthFirst]

10. Pair this with your recent internet history searches enabled through Amazon ad tracking...

...and you’ll prevent potential crime before it even happens!

[FakeNoose]

11. I can think of one way this would be useful

Tracking sales and shipments of illegal firearms. But really how many people would be dumb enough to do that? Anybody who's that stupid deserves to be caught.

The facial recognition and the other methods of tracking on personal computers are seriously alarming, and it's the main reason I disabled the camera and voice recognition on my Windows 10 computer. Not only Amazon, but also Google, Microsoft, Apple and several large tech companies would abuse this, and they probably are abusing it right now. Maintain your paranoia my friends, and you won't be far wrong.