{"id":19862,"date":"2020-06-04T12:06:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-04T12:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/icrowdnewswire.com\/?p=2581831"},"modified":"2020-06-04T12:06:00","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T12:06:00","slug":"protests-renew-scrutiny-of-techs-ties-to-law-enforcement-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/2020\/06\/04\/protests-renew-scrutiny-of-techs-ties-to-law-enforcement-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Protests Renew Scrutiny of Tech\u2019s Ties to Law Enforcement"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Amazon executives tweeted support for protesters. But the company sells a surveillance tool to police that studies say misidentifies darker-skinned people.<\/div>\n
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THE COLLECTIVE OUTRAGE<\/span> over the murder of George Floyd has led to nationwide protests<\/a>, renewed calls for police reform, and uncharacteristically swift support for racial equity from Silicon Valley leaders<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The backlash has been swift as well. Critics are calling out many companies now pledging support for Black Lives Matter, accusing them of failing to stop racist language on their platforms and, in some cases, enabling the over-policing and surveillance<\/a> that protesters now march against.<\/p>\n

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos took to Instagram<\/a> last week to share an essay by the writer Shenequa Golding, commenting on the “long reach” of racial trauma. The next day, the official Amazon account<\/a> tweeted a message “in solidarity with the black community.” Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy tweeted last week<\/a>, “What will it take for us to refuse to accept these unjust killings of black people?”<\/p>\n

But Amazon furnishes surveillance tools to police, including the widely criticized facial recognition<\/a> product, Rekognition. The tool misidentifies darker-skinned people more often than lighter-skinned people, according to<\/a> a report from AI researcher Joy Buolamwini. In 2018, the ACLU found<\/a> the tool misidentified members of Congress as criminals, misidentifying black officials more often than white ones.<\/p>\n

“Amazon tweeting support of ‘the fight against systematic racism and injustice’ is a textbook case of substituting virtue signaling for virtue,” said Evan Selinger, privacy scholar and professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology. “Not only have civil rights groups criticized Amazon for promoting a facial recognition tool to law enforcement that poses dire threats to minorities, but so have concerned shareholders.”<\/p>\n

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Jassy has defended Rekognition<\/a>, even as employees and numerous racial justice organizations<\/a> opposed its sale to police. In an all-hands meeting<\/a> in 2018, Jassy told employees, “if we find people are violating folks’ constitutional rights, they won’t be able to use the services any longer … In a democracy it is also often the role and the responsibilities of the government to help specify what the guidelines and regulations should be about technology.”<\/p>\n

There are no laws against police use of these surveillance tools, but Jassy’s comments speak to a flawed idea that inhibits efforts at police reform: These tools are acceptable because they aren’t illegal. In the wake of the protests, Trump reportedly told<\/a> law enforcement, “you have to track” rioters, renewing concerns that police would use surveillance technology as part of their response to protest.<\/p>\n

Amazon didn’t respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Similarly, Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Sunday voiced Google’s<\/a> “support for racial equality in solidarity with the Black community.” But, Google, too, has been criticized for supporting invasive policing tactics.<\/p>\n