Amazon shareholder will vote in May on a proposal to ban the sales agreement of facial recognition engineering to governments after beating an attempt by Amazon itself toquashthe proposal before it got to a vote .
Earlier this month , a group of prominent manufacture and academic AI researchersurged Amazonin anopen letterto stop selling its facial recognition engineering science , known asRekognition , to jurisprudence enforcement . The researchers reason that repeated studies and scrutiny have shown Rekognition has higher error pace for darkness - skinned and female soul .
Last year , an ACLUstudyfound Rekognition incorrectly matched 28 members of Congress to mugshot pic . The false matches touched men and women of dissimilar cutis color but disproportionately impacted multitude of color . Earlier this class , an MIT Media Labstudyshowed Rekognition struggled to correctly identify adult female of color .
Photo: Emma McIntyre (Getty)
Amazon claimed in both fount that research worker were n’t using Rekognition decently . There ’s a job with that : Police say they do n’t apply Rekognition in the way Amazon claims it recommends , either .
After the Security and Exchange Commission said before this week that Amazon had to let the vote on banning sale to politics agencies move forward , Amazon announced the date of the society ’s one-year stockholder meeting — the day the proposal will be voted on — is May 22 , 2019 .
“ Shareholders call for that the Board of Directors prohibit sale of facial recognition engineering to government government agency unless the Board conclude , after an evaluation using self-governing evidence , that the engineering does not get or contribute to real or possible violations of civil and human right wing , ” the shareholder proposal reads .
Amazon ’s circuit card of directorsopposesthe proposal and says that in the two geezerhood since Rekognition went to market it ’s never received a ill about the product violating rights or being sell to repressive governments .
In addition to the proposal to ban the cut-rate sale of facial realisation tech to government agency globally , stockholder will also vote on another marriage offer to have a third party bailiwick the privateness and human rights implications of Amazon ’s Rekognition .
The board opposes that proposal as well , arguing that their commitment to privateness and human rights is enough . The argument from Amazon has beenconsistentfor over a year of criticism : Amazon ’s full term of Service is enough to protect against ill-treatment .
Amazon did not immediately respond to our request for comment .
Last year , Microsoft ’s president and chief effectual officer , Brad Smith , called for Union regulationof face recognition to address privacy and human rights concerns .
“ We inhabit in a land of laws , and the government involve to make for an important office in regulating facial recognition engineering , ” Smith wrote . “ As a world-wide precept , it seems more sensible to ask an elected government to regulate caller than to ask unelected companies to regulate such a government . ”
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