Software falsely ID’s lawmakers

WASHINGTON — Amazon's facial recognition tools incorrectly identified Rep. John Lewis, a civil rights icon, and 27 other members of Congress as people arrested for a crime during a test commissioned by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, the watchdog group said.

Amazon's technology flagged photos of 28 members of Congress as likely matches with the ACLU's collection of mug shots. Among the misidentified lawmakers were Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., who has called for federal privacy legislation, and six members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

The CBC said the software was particularly risky because “communities of color are more heavily and aggressively policed than white communities,” meaning mistakes caused by faulty facial-recognition software could prove especially harmful.

On Thursday, Amazon questioned the ACLU's methodology for its test, stressing that the threshold the watchdog set for what qualifies as a match had been too low.