NEW YORK CITY - JUNE 11, 2020 – Following intense pressure from shareholders and media justice and civil rights organizations, Amazon announced yesterday that it will impose a one-year moratorium on police use of Rekognition, the company’s highly-criticized and racially biased facial recognition technology.
In response to the company’s announcement yesterday, Michael Connor, Executive Director of Open MIC––a non-profit that works with shareholders to foster corporate accountability in the tech sector––said, “This is welcome news after years of shareholders’ organizing to push Amazon to end sales of harmful, unregulated technology to police. But it’s only a temporary moratorium, and it doesn’t address deeper concerns that shareholders have regarding Amazon’s role in a rapidly-developing surveillance economy.”
Just two weeks ago, the company’s independent shareholders voted in favor by 40 percent for two separate resolutions that raised serious concerns regarding the civil and human rights violations posed threats by Rekognition as well as Amazon’s Ring doorbell technology and other surveillance products.
In presenting the Rekognition resolution at the Amazon meeting on May 27, Connor noted that researchers at MIT found that Rekognition demonstrates gender and racial bias, and is far more likely to misidentify women and people with dark skin than white men. He told the company’s senior management and board members, “It’s difficult to reconcile the company’s support for regulation—and acknowledgement of the potential negative, discriminatory impacts of the technology—with its willingness to risk these impacts by selling Rekognition in an unregulated environment.”
Listen to Michael Connor’s presentation at Amazon’s AGM here:
Despite this moratorium, Amazon is likely to continue selling Rekognition to the U.S. government’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, which has been accused of human rights abuses against immigrant communities through workplace raids, detention and deportation efforts. Amazon also continues to work with hundreds of U.S. police departments to market its Ring doorbell product, which has been widely criticized by leading civil rights organizations.
A separate resolution, organized by Investor Advocates for Social Justice and Open MIC, and presented to Amazon shareholders on May 27 by Myaisha Hayes of MediaJustice, called on the company to commission an independent third-party report to determine whether customers’ use of its surveillance and computer vision products or cloud-based services contributes to human rights violations.
Listen to Myaisha Hayes’ presentation at Amazon’s AGM here:
Mary Beth Gallagher, Executive Director of Investor Advocates for Social Justice, said: “We have called on Amazon to stop providing technologies to law enforcement that enable surveillance and further systemic racism, which is especially concerning given Amazon's inability to ensure that its customers are not using products and services like Rekognition and Ring in ways that violate human rights. Shareholders welcome this moratorium on Rekognition, encourage Amazon to expand it to all relationships with law enforcement, and urge the company to establish guidelines and governance mechanisms to oversee responsible sales of its products and services."
Media Contact
Open MIC
Michael Connor: (212) 875-9381 or mconnor@openmic.org
About Open MIC:
Open MIC works to foster greater corporate accountability at media and technology companies. Their primary tool is shareholder engagement. Working with impact investors, Open MIC (Open Media and Information Companies Initiative) identifies, develops and supports campaigns that promote values of openness, equity, privacy, and diversity – values that provide long-term benefits for individuals, companies, the economy and the health of democratic society. Current Open MIC initiatives include racial and gender diversity in the tech workforce; algorithmic accountability; hate speech and media manipulation; net neutrality; and online privacy. .
Learn more about Open MIC at www.openmic.org and www.twitter.com/openmicmedia.