Opinion: Amazon can’t make facial recognition go away

A file photo of a Palm Beach Sheriff's Office employee using a facial recognition software tool to provide identity resolution on cold cases. Concerns about facial recognition are well founded. Vendors often make unrealistic promises, causing police to do silly things like overstate the software’s reliability. And even good technology can perpetuate racial bias: In New York City, for example, the identification database consists largely of the disproportionately black and brown people whom the police have already processed. — Sun Sentinel/TNS

Amazon, IBM, and Microsoft have generated a lot of excitement by announcing that they will, at least for a while, stop selling facial recognition software to police departments. Municipalities have imposed moratoriums. Some activists are calling for an outright ban, on the grounds that the technology can disproportionately – and wrongly – identify people of colour as criminals.

If only it could make a bigger difference.