During the annual Alexa conference, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced that they (Amazon) are working on a draft for facial recognition legislation, which they intend to propose to congress. The announcement follows a wide array of criticism regarding their new facial recognition technology, called Rekognition, which was announced last February and is heavily being marketed for law enforcement and immigration agencies. (1) The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) tested Rekognition and found that it misidentified 28 members of Congress as criminals, of which 39% were people of color, while only 20% of the members of Congress are people of color. (2)
While Amazon states that they have the best of intentions with the laws that they are drafting, and it is good to see that they are aware of the dangers of facial recognition, one must be skeptical. As ACLU Attorney Jacob Snow said: “…Once companies realize that people are demanding strong privacy protections, they sweep in, pushing weak rules that won’t protect consumer privacy and rights. Cities across the country are voting to ban face surveillance, while Amazon is pushing its surveillance tech deeper into communities.” (3) As multiple committees as well as organizations are pushing for bans on facial recognition, it is not unlikely that Amazon is attempting to push legislation that is more open to a surveillance-based business model, stated Albet Fox Cahn, executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project. (4)
In a time where governments across the world are increasingly using facial recognition in public spaces, the implications for our freedom are chilling. Just last week, China announced that they have developed a 500 megapixel facial recognition camera that is able to identify faces in crowds of thousands. (5) Even the dutch police have started to maintain a facial recognition database, which currently contains over 1.3 million people. (6) I believe that we should take steps now, before we are all living in a black mirror episode, what do you think?
References:
(1): https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-facial-recognition/amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-said-company-working-on-facial-recognition-regulations-idUSKBN1WA35Q?il=0
(2): https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-technology/surveillance-technologies/amazons-face-recognition-falsely-matched-28
(3): https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/9/25/20884427/jeff-bezos-amazon-facial-recognition-draft-legislation-regulation-rekognition
(4): https://www.cnet.com/news/amazons-plan-for-facial-recognition-laws-faces-skeptics/
(5): https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/09/26/china-unveils-500-megapixel-camera-can-identify-every-face-crowd/
(6): https://www.vice.com/nl/article/8xzydz/gezichtsherkenning-op-de-nederlandse-straten-moeten-we-dat-willen
