Amazon releases suggestions for regulating facial recognition software

We support the calls for an appropriate national legislative framework that protects individual civil rights and ensures that governments are transparent in their use of facial recognition technology.The ACLU directly refutes Amazon's claims about its report, specifically the idea that it has not been misused by law enforcement."Amazon says it has not received a single report of misuse by law enforcement, but just last week was made aware of misuse and reportedly took no action," Singh Guliani said.Amazon's most far reaching suggestion is that all existing civil rights legislation apply to facial recognition technology. It objects to the idea of the "99% confidence threshold," because "changing the threshold does nothing to the reduce the inevitability of law enforcement using the technology to determine who attends protests, monitor immigrants, or target communities of color."And, in perhaps the most stunningly obvious objection to Amazon's suggestions, the ACLU points out that there is no law that authorizes government agencies to use facial recognition in the first place."Amazon says that face recognition should not violate the law, yet it ignores the fact that there is no law on the books authorizing its use by law enforcement at all," Singh Guliani said.Technology companies have a long history — stretching back to the era of railroads — of taking a hand in crafting the very legislation that governs its own activities.