During a test of Amazon's facial recognition tool, the American Civil Liberties Union found that the software incorrectly matched members of Congress with mugshots.
The ACLU created a database of 25,000 publicly available arrest photos. Using Amazon's "Rekognition," they inputted public photos of every current member in the House and Senate.
Twenty-eight of the members of Congress falsely matched up with photos of people who had been arrested for crimes, even though none of them were in the mugshot lineup.
According to the ACLU, the false matches disproportionately affected people of color. Six members of the Congressional Black Caucus were falsely matched, including Rep. John Lewis.
“Our test reinforces that face surveillance is not safe for government use,” said Jacob Snow, Technology and Civil Liberties Attorney at the ACLU Foundation of Northern California in a statement. “Face surveillance will be used to power discriminatory surveillance and policing that targets communities of color, immigrants, and activists. Once unleashed, that damage can’t be undone.”
A spokesperson for Amazon told The Verge that the results can be attributed to poor calibration. Amazon recommends using a threshold of at least 95 percent when identifying individuals. The ACLU's test used Rekoginition's default threshold of 80 percent.
The ACLU is leading the effort against the Rekognition software. In May, an investigation revealed that Amazon was marketing Rekognition to police departments and government agencies.
In June, the ACLU delivered more than 150,000 petition signatures to Amazon's Seattle headquarters demanding the tech company to stop selling facial surveillance technology to governments.
Some Amazon employees have also protested the company's facial recognition contracts with the government. In late June, employees circulated an internal later to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos asking him to stop selling the tool to police, Gizmodo reported.
Amazon, however, has so far deflected growing pressure from employees and privacy advocates to halt Rekognition.
Contributing: Associated Press
