Orlando police once again ditch Amazon’s facial recognition software

Illustration by James Bareham / The Verge Amazon’s controversial Rekognition platform, its artificial intelligence-powered facial recognition software, is no longer being used by Orlando law enforcement, ending the second attempt to use the technology in a pilot phase in central Florida. The reason: the city didn’t have the necessary equipment or bandwidth to get it properly running and never once was able to test it live. The news, reported today by Orlando Weekly, marks another high-profile setback for Rekognition, which has been plagued by criticism of its contributions to bias policing, unlawful surveillance, and racial profiling, as well as the clandestine way Amazon has gone about selling it to police departments while it’s still in active development. The use of... Continue reading…