Employees ask Amazon not to sell face recognition to law enforcement

A group of Amazon employees has penned a letter to company chief Jeff Bezos, asking him to stop selling facial recognition to law enforcement. They said that "in the midst of historic militarization of police, renewed targeting of Black activists, and the growth of a federal deportation force currently engaged in human rights abuses," Amazon's facial recognition software will surely serve as a powerful surveillance tool for the government. They also pointed out that a tool like it will "ultimately serve to harm the most marginalized." The employees wrote the letter after an American Civil Liberties Union investigation revealed that the tech giant sells its Rekognition facial detection system to law enforcement customers. Orlando's police chief admitted that the city's cops are testing the software in their headquarters and in a few places downtown.