UK Edition
Amazon shareholders reject ban on selling face recognition software to police
Amazon's shareholders have voted down a proposal to ban sales of its controversial Rekognition face-matching software to police forces.
Activists and civil rights groups had been pushing a motion at the online shopping giant's annual shareholder meeting to prevent Rekognition from being sold to law enforcement clients until its board could be sure that there was no risk of violating human rights.
But that proposal was voted down on Wednesday, along with a employee-led attempt to force the company to publish a comprehensive plan for cutting its carbon emissions.
It came amid increasing political resistance to the police use of face recognition technology (FRT), with US politicians expressing sharp doubts about it at a hearing in Congress the same day and cities across the USA moving to ban or restrict FRT.
In a sign of the increasing controversy Amazon faces, its shareholders voted on a record number of activist motions, reportedly more than any other US company this year. A proposal for Amazon to commission an independent report into the dangers of FRT was also rejected.
Rekognition has become a lightning rod for opposition to FRT, thanks to its use by numerous US police departments and a study by the American Civil Liberties Union which found it misidentified 28 members of Congress as criminals.
Seattle, where Amazon is based, is considering banning police from using FRT, and San Francisco, at the heart of the American tech industry, has already done so.
Amazon's board recommended against the proposal, saying: "In the two-plus years Amazon has been offering Rekognition, it has not received a single report of Amazon Rekognition being used in the harmful manner posited in the proposal, but is aware of many beneficial purposes, including by law enforcement to help improve public safety.
"We recognise that users of our technology, as with any technology, could also misuse [it], just as laptop computers, mobile phones or cameras can be misused... however, we do not believe that the potential for customers to misuse results generated by Rekognition should prevent us from making it available."
The Amazon employees' group behind the carbon emissions motion condemned the vote, saying it was "not the kind of leadership we need to address the climate crisis".
"Incremental steps are no longer acceptable in this time of climate emergency," said Emily Cunningham, a user experience designer at the company. "Without bold, rapid action we will lose our only chance to avoid catastrophic warming. There’s no issue more important to our customers or our world than the climate crisis, and we are falling far short."
Amazon's board said it was already acting to fight global warming, citing a long-term plan to make all of its deliveries carbon neutral and to make 50pc of them carbon neutral by 2030.