The Black Lives Matter movement notched a win in Silicon Valley this week, turning police use of facial recognition technology into a litmus test for big tech’s support of civil rights. Now everyone protesting for police reform needs to hold the companies to it.
Like dominoes in a lineup of corporate public relations stunts, first IBM, then Amazon and finally Microsoft (at a Washington Post Live event) said they won’t sell or would at least pause police use of their facial recognition technology until there are federal laws on the matter.
Never mind that none of these companies were major players in the police facial recognition market. (Microsoft admitted it never sold the tech to U.S. police.) But civil rights leaders and privacy advocates I’ve spoken to this week tell me that what they need is for big tech to stop arresting their legislative efforts to make the technology off-limits.
Please select this link to read the complete article from The Washington Post.
