In the past few weeks, we¡¯ve been seeing tech companies in the Silicon Valley and beyond come together and show their support for towards #BlackLivesMatter movement.?
Tech giants like Google, Apple, Microsoft have spoken about eliminating racism while standing in support of people protesting against police.
Another company that has been very vocal about supporting the movement is e-commerce giant Amazon. Apart from sharing #BlackLivesMatter banner on its website Jeff Bezos has shared instances of people threatening him to not join the cause where he¡¯s happily expressed the kind of customers Amazon is willing to lose?.
However, now, he takes this to the next level as Amazon recently announced that it is going to implement a one-year moratorium on use of Amazon¡¯s facial recognition tech Rekognition to not allow misuse of the system by the law enforcement.?
In case you didn¡¯t know, this facial recognition system was surrounded by a ton of controversies when it was found that the system was being done to use racial profiling.?
Amazon has said in an official statement, ¡°We¡¯ve advocated that governments should put in place stronger regulations to govern the ethical use of facial recognition technology, and in recent days, Congress appears ready to take on this challenge. We hope this one-year moratorium might give Congress enough time to implement appropriate rules, and we stand ready to help if requested.¡±
The tech itself will still be used by some organisations like Thorn, the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, as well as Marinus Analytics, to help rescue victims of human trafficking.?
Just a few days ago, IBM who is another leader in facial-recognition tech announced that it will no longer offer general-purpose facial recognition technology that is often used for mass surveillance, while also asking Congress to put necessary regulations in its place to prevent its misuse.?
Microsoft employees also wrote a letter to the CEO and VP for cancelling contracts with law enforcement, expressing the pain civilians are expressing due to extreme measures applied by the police in Seattle.?