Future Tense Newsletter: Amazon Isn't Just Tracking What's in Your Shopping Cart

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society. Amazon's object and facial recognition software, which the company claims offers real-time detection across tens of millions of mugs, including "up to 100 faces in challenging crowded photos." After its launch in late 2016, Amazon Web Services started marketing the visual surveillance tool (which it dubbed "Rekognition") to law enforcement agencies around the country--including partnering directly with the police department in Orlando and a sheriff's department in Oregon. But now, as April Glaser reports, civil rights groups are pushing back. Last week, a coalition including the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, sent an open letter expressing their "profound concerns" that governments could easily abuse the technology to target communities of color, undocumented immigrants, and political protestors.