Taking on Big Brother
What Big Tech’s facial recognition U-turn means. The MadHATTERs Editorial, 16 June 2020
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It only took mass protests against racism and police brutality for Big Tech to finally step back from facial recognition. IBM shook things up last week by saying it’ll no longer be involved in the controversial tech. Amazon and Microsoft quickly followed by temporarily halting the sale of their facial recognition tech to law enforcement.
Condemning facial recognition use for mass surveillance and racial profiling is not new. Research has proven that facial recognition systems misidentify women and people of colour, highlighting AI’s human bias and prompting activists to fight for a ban. The EU even considered a five-year moratorium on its use in public spaces (read MadHATTERs’ editorial on this). The US has talked a lot about federal legislation to keep surveillance software in check, something that’s been resisted by the very same companies now calling for stronger regulations to ensure facial recognition tech is used ethically.
It’s tempting to see this U-turn as the tech industry’s big awakening to the dangers of facial recognition. Cynics however view Amazon and Microsoft’s one-year ban as a PR stunt and their calls for better laws as Big Tech wanting a hand in how the legislation will be drawn up, to protect their own financial turfs.
But the careful handling of what’s been termed the plutonium of AI goes beyond virtue signalling. It requires clear regulations and strong enforcement measures, but also governments as well as all firms involved in facial recognition, not just the big guns, to commit to equitable and accountable AI.
We need to keep fighting for ethical tech.
MadHATTERs is a weekly newsletter covering technology, personal data, and the Internet. Its perspective championing decentralised personal data is led by Dataswift with the Hub of All Things (HAT) technology. If you like what you read, subscribe to receive MadHATTERs in your inbox. Find out more about the HAT at www.hubofallthings.com
