Amazon said Tuesday that it would indefinitely extend its ban on police use of its facial recognition software amid growing criticism that the technology invades privacy and incorrectly identifies people with darker skin.
Amazon and other tech companies that sell facial recognition software to law enforcement agencies have come under pressure from civil liberties advocates and their own workers to stop doing so.
“Face recognition technology fuels the over-policing of Black and Brown communities, and has already led to the false arrests and wrongful incarcerations of multiple Black men,” Nathan Freed Wessler, a deputy director of privacy and technology at the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement to Reuters.
Wessler expressed support for Amazon’s decision and is in favor of state and federal governments making it illegal for the police to use such technology.
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At least seven states have passed laws restricting the government’s use of facial recognition technology, and many other states are considering such bills.
Amazon first stopped selling such software to the police in June 2020 in the hopes that Congress would enact stronger regulations regarding the ethical use of facial recognition technology.
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The announcement last year came at a time when protests had erupted all over the country after the death of George Floyd. Big Tech giants such as IBM and Microsoft also stopped selling their technology to the police around the same time.
