The name of George Floyd does not appear anywhere in the press release, which also does not refer to the wave of protests against police violence in the United States. But no one is fooled: Amazon's decision to institute, on Wednesday, June 10, a one-year moratorium on the use of its facial recognition technology by the American police, succinctly justified by a reference to "the ethical, "has everything to do with social tensions in the United States.

The American giant is not the only one to have chosen to put aside the commercialization of its facial recognition technology in the current context. IBM had announced, the day before, the cessation of its research in this area and Microsoft joined the movement on Thursday June 11, suspending this activity until the Congress better regulates the use of facial recognition by the forces of order. 

Facial recognition, a collateral victim of protests

But Amazon's decision remains by far the one that has received the most attention. Mainly because the Seattle juggernaut has very extensive and rather controversial relations with the police in the United States. Police, the FBI, agents of the Department of National Security and immigration services, for example, all use 'Rekognition', Amazon's facial recognition software. Microsoft and IBM are far from having established such numerous links with the police or federal agents.

But how is this suspension for the police of the use of facial recognition linked to the death of George Floyd, this African-American who died during an overly muscular police check three weeks ago? Technology appears, in fact, as a collateral victim of demonstrations denouncing police violence of which the majority are victims of ethnic minorities. 

At first, the big tech groups all publicly displayed their support for the cause defended by the demonstrators. Jeff Bezos, boss of Amazon, even mediated his exchange on social networks with a client, hostile to the "Black Lives Matter" movement. Discussion to which the multi-billionaire put an end by launching a "You are the customer that I am happy to lose".

But the different positions taken by these companies have been deemed too agreed by the activists, who accuse them of being content with words without taking action. Hence the sacrifice - at least temporary for Amazon - of facial recognition. Technology has indeed often been accused of fostering racial bias.

Technology boosted by racial bias

This is particularly true in the case of Rekognition. In 2018, the American Union for Civil Liberties (ACLU) had demonstrated that this software all too often confused images of African American politicians with photos of the legal identity of black people taken by the police. A year later, and after some tweaking of the algorithm by Amazon, the same association had achieved a similar result, using photos of African American athletes. 

Beyond the case of Amazon, it is the set of facial recognition solutions which, despite significant advances, are still considered too unreliable by associations defending civil liberties. Hence their repeated calls, for over a year, to ban their use by the police. Investors from Amazon had even submitted a proposal to this effect at a shareholders' meeting in May 2019, but group officials could easily have blocked it. The Congress is also examining the supervision of a sector that is still very poorly regulated.

It therefore took the death of a black man for the deployment of facial recognition to slow down. The ACLU has also welcomed the decision of IBM, Microsoft and especially Amazon. But the influential association also called on the e-commerce giant to do more. 

Amazon could do more

Because, unlike announcements from Microsoft and IBM, Amazon's press release remains ambiguous. First of all, Jeff Bezos' group is the only one to give a deadline. "What will happen after a year?" Wonders the TechCrunch site, adding that it seems unlikely that Congress will pass legislation by then.

Amazon's decision also cites only the police, which is certainly the institution in the sights of the demonstrators. But to the extent that it can be problematic, why not have extended the suspension of the use of Rekognition to other state services, such as the FBI or immigration services, also questions TechCrunch.

Facial recognition is not the only service from Amazon used by the police that has drawn the wrath of associations defending individual rights. The Electronic Frontier Foundation thus called on Amazon, on June 3, to reconsider the agreements made with more than 1,200 American police stations concerning Ring, its connected video doorbell. 

This gadget quickly became a tool for massive surveillance in certain American districts where the police encourage the residents to send him video extracts of suspicious activities captured by the small videos integrated into these doorbells. Of course, a significant number of these "denunciations" concerned passers-by seeming "suspect" in the eyes of these honest citizens too eager to play police officers, had found the site Vice, who devoted a long investigation to this question in February 2019.

So certainly, for associations, each victory counts and the moratorium on the use of Rekognition constitutes progress. But the vagueness and omissions of the Amazon press release make them fear that this decision has more to do with a communication operation than with concrete support for all those who want to put an end to police discrimination.

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