Over the summer, Microsoft President Brad Smith called for governments to take a closer look at how facial detection technology is being implemented across the globe. This week, he returned with a similar message — only this time the executive is calling out fellow technology purveyors to help address myriad issues around the technology before […]
View More Microsoft calls on companies to adopt a facial recognition code of conductCategory: Facial Recognition
Lawmakers say Amazon’s facial recognition software may be racially biased and harm free expression
Amazon has “failed to provide sufficient answers” about its controversial facial recognition software, Rekognition — and lawmakers won’t take the company’s usual silent treatment for an answer. The letter, signed by eight lawmakers — including Sen. Edward Markey and Reps. John Lewis and Judy Chu — called on Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos to explain […]
View More Lawmakers say Amazon’s facial recognition software may be racially biased and harm free expressionQualcomm Ventures is dedicating $100M to AI investments
Qualcomm is betting big on on-device artificial intelligence.
View More Qualcomm Ventures is dedicating $100M to AI investmentsChinese facial recognition system catches jaywalker, turns out to be a bus
China hasn’t been shy about using facial recognition tech to catch jaywalkers, and publicly shame them.
The technology aims to dissuade bad behaviour by recognising the offender’s face, checking it with a database, then posting their information on p…
Five years and one pivot later, Trueface emerges with a promise for better facial recognition tech
Shaun Moore and Nezare Chafni didn’t initially intend to develop a new standalone facial recognition technology, when they first got started developing the technology that would become their new company, Trueface.ai. When the two serial entrepreneurs were planning their next act five years ago, they wanted to ride the wave of smart home technologies with […]
View More Five years and one pivot later, Trueface emerges with a promise for better facial recognition techKairos founder countersues his own company for $10 million
The turmoil continues at facial recognition startup Kairos . Last night, Kairos founder Brian Brackeen filed a counter lawsuit against Kairos and its interim CEO Melissa Doval that seeks $10 million in damages. Kairos is a facial recognition startup that has become well-known for its stance to never sell to law enforcement. At Disrupt SF […]
View More Kairos founder countersues his own company for $10 millionPolice trial of Amazon facial recognition tech doesn’t seem to be going very well
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Amazon’s facial recognition technology, Rekognition, continues to cause controversy.
In documents recently obtained by BuzzFeed News, we now have a behind-the-scenes look at how Orlando police have been using the technology. After the city let the original pilot program expire after public outcry, Orlando started a second pilot program with an “increased” number of face-scanning cameras.
Amazon’s Rekognition is described broadly as a visual analysis tool. But, deployed by law enforcement, it can scan faces caught on camera and match them against faces in criminal databases. The ACLU called the technology “primed for abuse in the hands of governments” and warned that it “poses a grave threat to communities, including people of color and immigrants.” Read more…
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Facial recognition startup Kairos founder continues to fight attempted takeover
There’s some turmoil brewing over at Miami-based facial recognition startup Kairos . Late last month, New World Angels President and Kairos board chairperson Steve O’Hara sent a letter to Kairos founder Brian Brackeen notifying him of his termination from the role of chief executive officer. The termination letter cited willful misconduct as the cause for […]
View More Facial recognition startup Kairos founder continues to fight attempted takeoverBig tech must not reframe digital ethics in its image
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s visage loomed large over the European parliament this week, both literally and figuratively, as global privacy regulators gathered in Brussels to interrogate the human impacts of technologies that derive their power and persuasiveness from our data. The eponymous social network has been at the center of a privacy storm this year. And […]
View More Big tech must not reframe digital ethics in its imageAmazon pitched facial recognition tech to ICE despite employee objections
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Amazon would really like U.S. law enforcement to use its facial-recognition software, despite how its employees feel.
According to internal documents obtained by the Project on Government Oversight, Amazon met with officials from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) over the summer in order to pitch facial-recognition technology known as Rekognition.
In June 2018, Amazon Web Services sales representatives met with ICE officials to discuss the government agency’s use of the face-scanning technology. In an email to ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations that followed, Amazon sent “action items” which included “Rekognition Video tagging/analysis, scalability, custom object libraries.” The Amazon sales representative went on to thank the agency for its interest in using the company’s technology “to support ICE and the HSI mission.” Read more…
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View More Amazon pitched facial recognition tech to ICE despite employee objectionsMicrosoft invests in Grab to bring AI and big data to on-demand services
Microsoft has made a strategic investment in ride-hailing and on-demand services company Grab as part of a deal that includes collaborating on big data and AI projects. Under the agreement, Singapore-based Grab will adopt Microsoft Azure as its preferred cloud platformAzure cloud computing service. Microsoft and Grab didn’t disclose financial terms. The idea behind the […]
View More Microsoft invests in Grab to bring AI and big data to on-demand servicesFacebook, are you kidding?
Facebook is making a video camera. The company wants you to take it home, gaze into its single roving-yet-unblinking eye and speak private thoughts to your loved ones into its many-eared panel. The thing is called Portal and it wants to live on your kitchen counter or in your living room or wherever else you’d […]
View More Facebook, are you kidding?