CEO Warns on “Mass Surveillance, Racial Profiling”

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CEO urges “national dialogue” on use by law enforcement

IBM is dropping facial recognition or analysis computer software from its portfolio, CEO Arvind Krishna has told the US Congress, saying IBM “firmly opposes and will not condone makes use of of any technological know-how, such as facial recognition technological know-how provided by other suppliers, for mass surveillance [and] racial profiling.”

“We think now is the time to begin a countrywide dialogue on whether and how facial recognition technological know-how should be used by domestic law enforcement agencies”, the CEO — who took the helm in April — mentioned in a letter to Congress that IBM printed late Monday, June 8.

Krishna is not the 1st key technological know-how vendor’s chief to convey significant misgivings about how facial recognition technological know-how is being employed.

Microsoft’s President Brad Smith in late 2018 urged governments to get started regulating the technological know-how. As he put it at the time: “The facial recognition genie, so to discuss, is just emerging from the bottle.

“Unless we act, we risk waking up five many years from now to find that facial recognition companies have distribute in strategies that exacerbate societal concerns. By that time, these issues will be a lot far more challenging to bottle again up.”

It was not quickly distinct if IBM experienced dropped the providing from its portfolio for ethical causes, or simply because it wasn’t making IBM any funds. (IBM experienced printed a “Diversity in Faces” information set of one million faces in January 2019 to coach facial recognition AIs on, with the specific purpose of tackling bias.)

Krishna’s letter came as the organization presented a in depth set of policy proposals to “advance racial equality in our nation”.

IBM is proposing (between other recommendations) that Congress should “bring far more law enforcement misconduct instances underneath federal courtroom purview and should make modifications to the skilled immunity doctrine that prevents people today from seeking damages when law enforcement violate their constitutional legal rights.”

See also: Amazon’s Facial Recognition Software Can Now Detect “Fear” On Faces