Amazon Faces Lawmakers’ Questions About Its Facial Recognition Tech

Eight lawmakers from the Democratic party have been urging explanations from Amazon particularly about the usage of the company’s facial recognition technology by some local law enforcers.

It is said by the lawmakers in their letter on Thursday that Amazon didn't offer a persuasive explanation about its new facial recognition technology called Rekognition while they had demanded the company before.

The lawmakers also expressed that they had significant concerns about the system's accuracy problems, which could potentially create the barriers to the coalition of colorful communities and prevent America’s citizens from willingly exercising their rights under the First Amendment in public.

According to the demand in their letters, Amazon will have to provide the lawmakers with more specific and transparent information regarding the accuracy as well as the biases of Rekognition. Also, the development of protective measures should be considered.

The investigation hailed from some revelations in recent times showing that Amazon could be seeking out entities in law enforcement to market their product, which included the United State ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) without sufficient precautions.

According to the lawmakers' reports, law enforcers have been collecting bystanders’ raw video footage via cameras and then send them to Amazon servers for further analysis. Moreover, they hinted that the programs met the requirement of neither external nor internal policy guidelines. Also, Amazon gave no hands-on-training to law enforcers who participated in these programs.

Activist groups, workers, and shareholders from Amazon have been filled with concerns over the Rekognition's potential privacy breach.

Apart from the eight lawmakers as mentioned above, five months ago, members of the US Congress have also sent the same letter to Amazon’s CEO – Jeff Bezos, requesting a further explanation about Rekognition. However, until now, there hasn't been any clear response from Amazon. Bezos's deadline to give the answer for the latest letter to the lawmakers is December 13th.