Amazon.com Inc last week announced a one-year pause in use by police forces of its artificial intelligence software for recognising faces. The next day, Microsoft Corp said it doesn’t currently sell its similar product to US police departments and won’t do so until the US federal government passes a law regulating its use.
Both steps came amid widespread protests against police brutality and misconduct targeted at Black people – a population on whom facial-recognition software performs poorly, leading to concerns that the technology is another vector for discrimination against people of color by law enforcement.