Tech CEO admits facing issues
CHRISTOPHER CARBONE
GOOGLE and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai supports a temporary ban on facial recognition technology in the European Union.
Activists and technologists have called the controversial technology racially biased, and voiced concerns about privacy regarding its use by governments and law enforcement.
“I think it is important that governments and regulations tackle it sooner rather than later and give a framework for it,” Mr Pichai told a conference in Brussels, according to Reuters. “It can be immediate but maybe there’s a waiting period before we really think about how it’s being used.”
It was “up to governments to chart the course” for the use of such technology, he added.
The American Civil Liberties Union praised the tech mogul for his comments.
“Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai is right to back a temporary ban on face recognition – and the United States should likewise halt law enforcement use of this technology without delay,” said Neema Guliani, senior legislative counsel with the ACLU, in a statement to Fox News.
“Unethical surveillance companies will not wait for regulations before pushing their untested, error-prone and dystopian face-tracking technologies on police departments.”
Last year, the ACLU led a coalition of advocacy groups to demand that Google, Microsoft and Amazon commit to not selling face-surveillance technology to the government.