Amazon should stop selling facial recognition tools to police, say civil liberties advocates

Civil liberties advocates are calling on Amazon to cease providing facial recognition technology to law enforcement agencies. "We demand that Amazon stop powering a government surveillance infrastructure that poses a grave threat to customers and communities across the country", a coalition let by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) wrote in a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. At issue is a tool known as "Rekognition" that allows users to compare anonymous faces against other images to try and establish identity. An explanatory post on Amazon's website notes that it offers "security and surveillance applications" that include "crime prevention" by identifying "persons of interest". According to emails obtained by the ACLU, multiple law enforcement agencies have harnessed the tool in their investigative work.