Ride the Lightning

Microsoft, IBM and Amazon Won’t Sell Facial Recognition Products to Law Enforcement

June 22, 2020

Business Insider reported on June 13 that three of the world's biggest tech companies have stopped selling facial recognition to law enforcement amid ongoing protests against police brutality.

IBM announced it is stopping the sale of "general purpose" facial recognition. Amazon announced it was imposing a one-year suspension on the sale of its facial recognition software to law enforcement. Microsoft did the same thing, saying it does not sell facial recognition technology to US police forces and will not do so until legislation is passed governing the use of the technology.

The companies have really hit a "pause" button as activists and academics have advocated for years for companies not to sell facial recognition to law enforcement because it exacerbates racial injustice.

A 2019 National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) study found that facial recognition algorithms are riddled with defects. Minority groups including Asians and African Americans had higher false positives in one-to-one matching. In some cases, these false-positives increased by a factor of up to 100 for these groups. The report also discovered gender biases, as African American females had a higher rate of false positives for one-to-many matching datasets.

I hope the companies remain committed to this position and to the development of algorithms that are free of bias.

Sharon D. Nelson, Esq., President, Sensei Enterprises, Inc.
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Digital Forensics/Cybersecurity/Information Technology
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