Amazon's Facial Recognition Technology Identifies 28 Lawmakers as Arrested Persons

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) claims that in a test that it has conducted, Amazon's facial recognition technology has falsely paired 28 members of Congress with others. people who had been arrested for a crime.

In a report released Thursday, the ACLU stated that she had seized the photos of all current members of the House and Senate in a database that she had created from 25 000 shots publicly available. Using the default settings of Amazon's Rekognition facial recognition system, the ACLU claims that more than two dozen members of Congress have been identified as arrested.

"We remain excited that image and video analysis can be a driver," said a spokeswoman for Amazon Web Services in a statement.

The statement also stated that the technology is "almost exclusively used to help shrink the field and allow humans to quickly consider and consider options using their judgment." "

Police agencies across the country have begun to consider using facial recognition technology.The technology recently helped the Maryland authorities to identify Jarrod Ramos, the alleged shot firer of the Capital Gazette.

The ACLU test included Democrat and Republican senators as well as representatives of all ages and all genres

Technology Mistakes Among the deformed Congressmen, 39% false matches were people of color, however, people of color represent only 20% of Congress

Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., and Rep. Jimmy Gomez, D-Calif., both wrongly identified in the test, responded on Twitter

Gomez scored the CEO of Amazon Jeff Bezos asking to speak and Gutierrez tweeted, "Are you sure that Amazon is not only talking to Donald Trump, Tucker Carlson and Breitbart? They think that all Latinos are criminals. "

Gutierrez, along with Senator Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., And Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Calif., Who had also been poorly identified by technology, sent a letter to Bezos with a series of Questions on the Functioning of Technology

In a press release, Civil Rights Leader John Lewis, D-Ga., who was also misidentified, described the test results as "deeply troubling".

"I myself have suffered misidentification and mis-targeting when traveling between airports and planes." "What would happen under these already threatening conditions, if people from these same communities were identified by facial recognition software and how would they prove to the police that a computerized result is wrong? "

that law enforcement agencies should not use technology as long as "civil rights e t civil liberties are confronted and the accuracy guaranteed ".

The Congressional Black Caucus sent a letter to Bezos in May expressing concern.

At the end of the report, the ACLU asked Congress to "enact a moratorium" on law enforcement agencies using facial recognition technology.