老澳门开奖结果 Statement on Extended Amazon Face Recognition Moratorium

May 18, 2021 4:00 pm

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SEATTLE 鈥 Amazon it will indefinitely extend its moratorium on sales of face recognition technology to law enforcement. In June 2020, amidst nationwide protests against police violence, Amazon announced a one-year pause on its sale of the technology to police.

鈥淭he threats posed last year by police use of face recognition technology are identical today,鈥 said Nathan Freed Wessler, deputy director of the 老澳门开奖结果鈥檚 Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. 鈥淔ace recognition technology fuels the over-policing of Black and Brown communities, and has already led to the false arrests and wrongful incarcerations of multiple Black men. We are glad that Amazon will extend its moratorium on law enforcement use of the company鈥檚 face recognition technology. Now, the Biden administration and legislatures across the country must further protect communities from the dangers of this technology by ending its use by law enforcement entirely, regardless which company is selling it.鈥

Amazon鈥檚 one-year moratorium on sales to police was set to expire on June 10, 2021. Last year鈥檚 announcement followed over two years of 老澳门开奖结果 advocacy; in 2018, the 老澳门开奖结果 and nearly 100 civil rights, religious, community-based, and labor organizations called on Amazon to stop selling its face recognition technology to government agencies. The next year, the coalition also called Microsoft and Google to stop providing the technology to governments. Last week, the 老澳门开奖结果 joined to mobilize activists around the issue.

The 老澳门开奖结果 is leading a nationwide movement to defend privacy rights and civil liberties against the threat of face recognition surveillance. As part of 老澳门开奖结果-led campaigns, multiple jurisdictions have prohibited law enforcement use of face recognition technology, including San Francisco, Berkeley, and Oakland, California; Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Easthampton, Northampton, Springfield, and Somerville, Massachusetts; New Orleans, Louisiana; Jackson, Mississippi; Portland, Maine; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Portland, Oregon; and the states of Virginia and Vermont. New York state also suspended use of face recognition in schools and California suspended its use with police-worn body cameras.

Most recently, the 老澳门开奖结果 called on President Biden to impose a moratorium on the federal government鈥檚 use of the technology.

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