An anonymous employee at Amazon is putting pressure on the tech giant to stop selling their new facial recognition technology to law enforcement. The individual’s employment at Amazon was confirmed by Medium where they published on their platform stating that the facial recognition software was getting to a scary point.
The individual also mentioned that the government has used surveillance methods like this in the past to oppress immigrants, communities of color and those that are choosing to express their First Amendment Rights. They also wrote that ignoring these concerns while the government gets access to these technologies is simply dangerous and irresponsible. When Teresa Carlson recently mentioned that Amazon supports law enforcement unwaveringly, some of the employees at Amazon grew increasingly concerned.
This particular publication comes mere hours after the CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, defended technology companies that work with the federal government. During the Wired summit in San Francisco he said that if big tech companies are going to turn their back on the United States Department of Defense then ultimately the country will be doomed.
Bezos stated that if a certain kind of technology gets misued, the public solves the issue before it gets too out of hand. However many Amazon workers believe that this type of thinking will hurt many people in the years to come.
