Amazon Employees Ask Bezos To Stop Sale of Facial Recognition Software To Police

Amazon is the latest tech behemothic to take been criticised for extending its services to U.Due south law enforcement agencies. The employees of the east-commerce behemothic take now penned a letter to CEO Jeff Bezos asking to stop the sale of their facial recognition tool to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The letter written by a group of Amazon employees, showtime revealed by The Colina, criticizes the company for selling its pop facial recognition tool – Amazon Spider web Services Rekognition – to the U.S government.

They cite examples of 'celebrated militarization' to make a point regarding the human rights abuse happening at the U.S border and say that Rekognition is some other powerful tool "for the surveillance country, and ultimately serve to impairment the most marginalized." They further to continue to add in the letter:

We refuse to build the platform that powers Water ice, and we refuse to contribute to tools that violate human rights. As ethically concerned Amazonians, we demand a choice in what we build and a say in how it is used.

amazon rekognition

This letter has been written to Bezos later on an investigation past the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) revealed that AWS shipped the facial recognition tool to law in Florida and Oregon. The police force have confirmed the claims, saying that they're testing the software and using it to rail only the cops who have volunteered to exist role of the pilot program.

It is, however, currently unclear whether residents are also existence tracked under this facial recognition program for U.S constabulary enforcement. The employees take also asked Amazon to drop information-mining company Palantir from AWS equally information technology is being used to weed out immigrants.

And not just that, they're also asked Bezos to make the proceeding of the company more than accountable and transparent – as to how Amazon products are being used past the U.Southward regime. An Amazon spokesperson has defended Rekognition and in a statement said,

Our quality of life would be much worse today if nosotros outlawed new technology considering some people could choose to abuse the technology.

This is an indirect respond to the business organisation of Amazon employees, which is like to what the Microsoft CEO has washed past saying that they're non directly involved with ICE or the border police. Yous can read the complete letter to Jeff Bezos right here and do permit united states of america know your thoughts in the comments below.