Documents gathered through a Freedom of Information Act request show that Amazon has been providing facial-recognition tools to law enforcement agencies in Oregon and Orlando, The Washington Post reports. Rekognition, the technology being sold to law enforcement, is said to be able to identify up to 100 people in a crowd and offers “person tracking.” In a letter to Amazon, a coalition of civil rights groups wrote, “We demand that Amazon stop powering a government surveillance infrastructure that poses a grave threat to customers and communities across the country.” A spokesperson for Amazon said Rekognition has many useful purposes, adding, “Amazon requires that customers comply with the law and be responsible when they use AWS services.” (Registration may be required to access this story.)
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