Civil rights activists have been arguing for long that methods of surveillance using facial recognition technology could be used unethically against minority communities, immigrants, activists or just about anyone with a viewpoint that is different from that of the government. ACLU wants Congress to prohibit law enforcers from using the technology on the grounds of it being faulty, biased and dangerous.
Amazon meanwhile stood by its product and blamed incorrect settings for the unflattering test results. Amazon said the 80% setting was more suited for the identification of objects and not for human beings and when being used in law enforcement for identifying people, a setting of 95% or higher was recommended.
Despite the criticism, Amazon believes the Rekognition tool can be used for crime prevention, tracking of missing individuals as well as several other worthy purposes. Facial recognition is popular in China for legal use with several companies investing in it significantly.