Amazon built a dystopian facial recognition tool and now they’re selling it to police and government agencies

Update: Amazon has been actively courting ICE as a client for its facial recognition surveillance program, Rekognition. This would put powerful surveillance technology directly in the hands of a government agency that's systematically violating human rights. Sign the petition and demand Amazon stop helping the government by peddling invasive technology!

Amazon has been quietly landing contracts with law enforcement agencies throughout the country for its little-known facial recognition surveillance program—Rekognition—that can identify up to 100 people in a single photo. The invasive technology gives cops the power to do real time recognition against a massive database of tens of millions of people.

It’s an authoritarian government’s wildest dream come true, and police departments in the U.S. have—unbeknownst to the public until now—already started using it. Amazon and the government both tried to keep the program secret, but they were exposed by FOIA requests filed by the ACLU.

Handing police officers real-time facial recognition powers with no public oversight and no meaningful restrictions for use is a major threat to democracy and open society. This technology, especially without transparency, will further embolden even more dystopian surveillance programs, mass racial profiling, targeting of political dissidents, and other abuses.

More than 130 million American adults are in facial recognition databases and can be tracked by law enforcement using technology like Rekognition, not just people actively involved in criminal investigations.

Sign the petition now to tell Amazon: “Stop helping the U.S. government spy on millions of innocent people. Honor our right to privacy by immediately ending the U.S. government's access to the Rekognition program."

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