IBM announced Monday that it intends to end the sale of general purpose facial recognition software after protests against racism and police brutality have followed in the United States for two weeks. The American computer giant declared that it was firmly opposed "to the use of any technology for the purposes of mass surveillance, racial profiling, violations of basic human rights and freedoms or any objective contrary to our values", in a letter to members of Congress from IBM executive chief Arvind Krishna.
"We think this is the time to open a national dialogue on facial recognition technologies to determine if and how they should be used by law enforcement," he said. Facial recognition is based on artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.
"Protect" and not "discriminate"
It can be used to authenticate users of a service (smartphone, payment system, etc.), but also to identify people within a group of individuals physically present or in a photo database, for example. Facial recognition "can help the police protect communities but must not promote discrimination or racial injustice," says Arvind Krishna.
"Suppliers and customers who use artificial intelligence share the responsibility of ensuring that AI is not biased, especially when it comes to law enforcement," she adds. The boss of IBM is asking Congress to ensure that officers' mobile cameras and analytical tools can help bring the police to account when necessary.
Neema Singh Guliani of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) believes that facial recognition should not be built into these cameras at all. "We need to invest in technologies that can help bridge the digital divide, not technologies that create surveillance infrastructure and exacerbate police abuse and structural racism," she said. ACLU regularly questions technology companies like Amazon or Microsoft about the potentially abusive or harmful uses of facial recognition.
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