In the News

Last week, Amazon made a terse announcement that it would institute a “one-year moratorium on police use of Amazon’s facial recognition technology,” known as Rekognition, in response to the wave of global protests against police brutality spurred by the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. At least one lawmaker is unsatisfied by the company’s limp new commitment to racial justice.
“Corporations have been quick to share expressions of support for the Black Lives Matter movement,” U.S. Rep. Jimmy Gomez, a California Democrat, wrote in a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos today. “Unfortunately, too many of these gestures have been performative at best. Calling on Congress to regulate facial recognition technology is one of these gestures.”