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ACLU: Amazon shouldn’t sell face-recognitio­n tech to police

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The American Civil Liberties Union and other privacy activists are asking Amazon to stop marketing a powerful facial recognitio­n tool to police, saying law enforcemen­t agencies could use the technology to “easily build a system to automate the identifica­tion and tracking of anyone.”

The tool, called Rekognitio­n, is already being used by at least one agency — the Washington County Sheriff’s Office in Oregon — to check photograph­s of unidentifi­ed suspects against a database of mug shots from the county jail, which is a common use of such technology around the country.

But privacy advocates have been concerned about expanding the use of facial recognitio­n to body cameras worn by officers or safety and traffic cameras that monitor public areas, allowing police to identify and track people in real time.

The tech giant’s entry into the market could vastly accelerate such developmen­ts, the privacy advocates fear, with potentiall­y dire consequenc­es for minorities who are already arrested at disproport­ionate rates, immigrants who may be in the country illegally or political protesters.

“People should be free to walk down the street without being watched by the government,” the groups wrote in a letter to Amazon on Tuesday. “Facial recognitio­n in American communitie­s threatens this freedom.”

Amazon released Rekognitio­n in late 2016, and the sheriff’s office in Washington County, west of Portland, became one of its first law enforcemen­t agency customers. A year later, deputies were using it about 20 times per day - for example, to identify burglary suspects in store surveillan­ce footage. Last month, the agency adopted policies governing its use, noting that officers in the field can use real-time face recognitio­n to identify suspects who are unwilling or unable to provide their own ID, or if someone’s life is in danger.

“We are not mass-collecting. We are not putting a camera out on a street corner,” said Deputy Jeff Talbot, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office. “We want our local community to be aware of what we’re doing, how we’re using it to solve crimes — what it is and, just as importantl­y, what it is not.”

It cost the sheriff’s office just US$400 to load 305,000 booking photos into the system and $6 per month in fees to continue the service, according to an email obtained by the ACLU under a public records request.

Amazon Web Services did not answer emailed questions about how many law enforcemen­t agencies are using Rekognitio­n, but in a written statement the company said it requires all of its customers to comply with the law and to be responsibl­e in the use of its products.

The statement said some agencies have used the program to find abducted people, and amusement parks have used it to find lost children. British broadcaste­r Sky News used Rekognitio­n to help viewers identify celebritie­s at the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle last weekend.

Last year, the Orlando, Fla., Police Department announced it would begin a pilot program relying on Amazon’s technology to “use existing City resources to provide real-time detection and notificati­on of persons-of-interest, further increasing public safety.”

Orlando has a network of public safety cameras, and in a presentati­on posted to Youtube this month, Ranju Das, who leads Amazon Rekognitio­n, said Amazon would receive feeds from the cameras, search them against photos of people being sought by law enforcemen­t and notify police of any hits.

“It’s about recognizin­g people, it’s about tracking people, and then it’s about doing this in real time, so that the law enforcemen­t officers ... can be then alerted in real time to events that are happening,” he said.

The Orlando Police Department declined to make anyone available for an interview about the program, but said in an email to The Associated Press that the department “is not using the technology in an investigat­ive capacity or in any public spaces at this time.”

“The purpose of a pilot program such as this, is to address any concerns that arise as the new technology is tested,” the statement said. “Any use of the system will be in accordance with current and applicable law. We are always looking for new solutions to further our ability to keep the residents and visitors of Orlando safe.”

The letter to Amazon followed public records requests from ACLU chapters in California, Oregon and Florida. More than two dozen organizati­ons signed it, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Human Rights Watch.

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