Three of the world’s biggest tech companies cut cords this week with police departments across America that used their facial recognition platforms, a move police call "uninformed" and a "stunt". IBM was first to stop software support "following nationwide protests for racial equality and changes to police treatment of black people," but the move follows years of complaints and admissions by tech tech companies, including Amazon and Microsoft, "that systems more often fail to identify people with darker skin than those with lighter skin." Amazon announced a one-year moratorium on police use of the technology, and Microsoft also stopped use of its facial scanning systems “until we have a national law in place, grounded in human rights, that will govern this technology.” Ed Hutchinson, president of the National Police Association, said the announcements hurt police because they “aggravate the already common misconception” of how police departments use facial recognition. “Due in large part to the wild exaggerations made by television and movie depictions, the perception exists that facial recognition is a science like DNA or fingerprints. It is not,” said [Ed Hutchinson, president of the National Police Association]. Furthermore, facial recognition is not admissible in court, though it is useful to augment investigations. “If there’s problems with it, fix the problem,” Bill Johnson, executive director at the National Association of Police Organizations said in a Friday phone call. “Stuff comes out — there’s problems with it. I think there has to be sensitivity when those problems are more likely to identify people if they’re persons of color, but I think if companies are honest about it … people are willing to give the company the benefit of the doubt — willing to believe they are working on it.” https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/big-tech-scrapping-facial-recognition-services-for-police Like identity-shrouding Covid masks, this is good news for the bad guys. Oh wait, I forgot. There aren't any bad guys anymore. What? That's what I said -- What? Wonder how much revenue it has generated for tech companies, given surveillance has become nearly ubiquitous.
The thing that is never mentioned is the facial recognition tech was used in cameras from eight years ago. I bought a digital video camera that had facial recognition tech in 2013..Missouri state cops had it in 2014..
