An anonymous employee for tech giant Amazon recently posted an opinion article to Medium in which they argue that the sale of facial recognition software to police is wrong because "the product we’re selling is a flawed technology that reinforces existing bias."
Anonymous Amazon Employee Publishes Op-Ed Opposing Sale of Facial Recognition Tech to Police
An anonymous employee for tech giant Amazon recently posted an opinion article to Medium in which they argue that the sale of facial recognition software to police is wrong because "the product we’re selling is a flawed technology that reinforces existing bias."
October 18, 2018
1 min to read
In June, a group of Amazon employees posted to an internal company Wiki page a letter—later obtained by The Hill—asking company executives to discontinue its sale of the company’s Rekognition facial recognition software to law enforcement agencies.
The anonymous op-ed published this week rekindles opposition to the sale of that technology to police.
"Amazon, where I work, is currently allowing police departments around the country to purchase its facial recognition product, Rekognition, and I and other employees demand that we stop immediately," the opinion piece reads.
The employee wrote, "Amazon is designing, marketing, and selling a system for dangerous mass surveillance right now," the write states. "Amazon’s website brags of the system’s ability to store and search tens of millions of faces at a time. Law enforcement has already started using facial recognition with virtually no public oversight or debate or restrictions on use from Amazon."
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