IBM gives up on face-recognition business – will other firms follow?

Software giant IBM has announced that it is withdrawing certain face-recognition products from the market, and has called for a "national dialogue" about the technology's use by US law enforcement agencies. The move, which comes as global protests against racism and police brutality enter their third week, is a marked change in the company's approach to face recognition. In November 2019, IBM said "blanket bans on technology are not the answer to concerns around specific use cases". Flaws in face-recognition technology are well documented. A 2018 study by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Microsoft found that dark-skinned women are misidentified by such systems 35 per cent of the time.