Amazon announced that it is extending the moratorium that prevents the use of the company’s facial recognition technologies for law enforcement applications, extending the previous one-year moratorium, which expires in June, to an indefinite period.

This decision comes a year after Amazon temporarily paused until June 10, 2021 the use of its facial recognition for law enforcement agencies, coinciding with the protests of the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States after the death. of the African American George Floyd.

The company decided to extend this moratorium again, although this time it has done so until further notice, according to a statement from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Amazon launched Rekognition, a ‘software’ in 2016 that, as the company details on its website, “provides high-precision facial analysis and facial search capabilities that you can use to detect, analyze and compare faces,” and among its customers are law enforcement agencies.

It is a technology that generates controversy, not only because of privacy issues, but also because of its racial bias, which makes it difficult to distinguish between people with darker skin.

Amazon urged a year ago that the United States Congress implement rules on the ethical use of facial recognition, and institutions such as the ACLU have asked the Biden Administration to completely ban the use of facial recognition technologies for police work, regardless of the company.

K. Tovar

Source: France24

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