Demand Progress

Amazon is making big bucks to help local police spy on you!

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    Amazon is making big bucks to help local police spy on you!

    Petition to Amazon:
    Rekognition is an Amazon facial recognition program that allows police to spy on and track everyone’s movements in real time. Stop selling Rekognition to law enforcement immediately.

    Amazon wants to deliver cops and ICE agents – right to your door!

    They’re selling a face recognition program to local law enforcement to scan and track everyone in public spaces – whether or not you’re even involved in a crime.1

    Amazon either thinks their customers won’t notice police spying on them, or they don’t care. Tell Amazon if they want to keep their customers happy, they better stop selling spy technology to law enforcement.

    Rekognition is Amazon’s face recognition software. Ranju Das, Rekognition’s Director of Software Development has said, “it’s about tracking people, and then it’s about doing this in real time.”2

    Rekognition will be able to run body camera footage through facial recognition to identify and then track anyone who even walks past a police officer. Which means our basic right to privacy is getting thrown out the window, thanks to Amazon.

    This software is already being used in Florida and Oregon, but now Amazon wants to make even more money by selling Rekognition to more local police departments!

    Tell Amazon to get out of the Big Brother surveillance state business. Sign and share the petition demanding Amazon stop selling Rekognition to local law enforcement.

    Face recognition programs are dangerous in the wrong hands. As high tech as Silicone Valley claims it is, facial recognition software carry staggering biases against women and people of color.3 In the hands of police, hundreds of thousands of people of color could be inaccurately misidentified – and then taken into custody.

    As ICE increasingly demands biometric data from people entering the country, and works closely with and shares data with local police, Amazon’s Rekognition could identify – and misidentify, because of its racial bias – people as immigrants and then track their movement. All without any proof or suspicion of a crime.

    Tell Amazon they can’t endanger the public without massive public outcry. Sign and share the petition to demand they stop selling Rekognition to local enforcement immediately.

     

    Sources:
    1. ABC News, “Amazon urged not to sell facial recognition tool to police,” May 22, 2018.
    2. Ibid.
    3. The Verge, “Amazon needs to come clean about racial bias in its algorithms,” May 23, 2018.