Amazon to present its own facial recognition laws to lawmakers
Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon (AMZN) has discussed his company’s development of facial recognition technology laws that its plans to share with U.S. lawmakers, Vox reports.
Earlier this year, Amazon Rekognition published guidelines that it hoped lawmakers would consider enacting.
Bezos told reporters at a surprise appearance on Wednesday, September 26th: "Our public policy team is actually working on facial recognition regulations; it makes a lot of sense to regulate that. It’s a perfect example of something that has really positive uses, so you don’t want to put the brakes on it, But, at the same time, there’s also potential for abuses of that kind of technology, so you do want regulations. It’s a classic dual-use kind of technology."
A major corporation drafting laws for the federal government has raised some hackles. Civil liberties groups, lawmakers and hundreds of Amazon employees, have protested against Amazon Web Service (AWS) for marketing Rekognition to police, US immigration authorities and other law enforcement agencies, over concerns that the powerful technology could be misused.
Jacob Snow, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union said: "It’s a welcome sign that Amazon is finally acknowledging the dangers of face surveillance. But we’ve seen this playbook before. Once companies realize that people are demanding strong privacy protections, they sweep in, pushing weak rules that won’t protect consumer privacy and rights. Cities across the country are voting to ban face surveillance, while Amazon is pushing its surveillance tech deeper into communities."
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