【A Thought of Ecstasy】

Amazon will sell its facial-recognition technology to whomever it damn well pleases thank you very much.

That message was loud and A Thought of Ecstasyclear Wednesday morning at the company's annual shareholder meeting, where two non-binding proposals meant to regulate the sale and investigate the use of Amazon's Rekognition technology were opposed by the company and voted down by shareholders. The failed effort to limit the sale of its controversial product to law enforcement comes at a time when Rekognition is increasingly being criticized for biases and false positives.

Amazon confirmed to Mashable via email that both proposals failed. Our questions regarding the specific vote tallies on each, as well as the company's response to criticism over Rekognition, were not answered.

The first of the two proposals aimed to at least temporarily stop the sale of Rekognition to governments around the world.

"[Shareholders] request that the Board of Directors prohibit sales of facial recognition technology to government agencies unless the Board concludes, after an evaluation using independent evidence, that the technology does not cause or contribute to actual or potential violations of civil and human rights," it read.

The second measure requested an "independent study" of Rekognition and a subsequent report to shareholders detailing, among other things, "[the] extent to which such technology may endanger, threaten, or violate privacy and or civil rights, and unfairly or disproportionately target or surveil people of color, immigrants and activists in the United States[.]"

Amazon, which in January of this year was very publicly criticized for selling Rekognition to the feds, flat out rejected both.

On Wednesday morning, before the vote, the ACLU urged Amazon to change its surveillance tech policies.

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"We're at @Amazon's shareholder meeting today urging shareholders to take action in response to the company's failure to address the civil rights impacts of its face surveillance technology," tweeted the civil liberties organization.

Some, but as of yet not a voting majority, of the company's shareholders are clearly receptive to that message.

And so with the calls for reform coming from both inside and outside its house, Amazon won't be able to put the issue of Rekognition behind it anytime soon — even with its victory today. But hey, moral and ethical headwinds have never stopped Amazon's continuous march toward dominance before.

UPDATE: May 22, 2019, 3:33 p.m. PDT: An Amazon spokesperson followed up with the below statement:

We believe our customers – including law enforcement agencies and other groups working to keep our communities safe – should have access to the best technology. We also believe that facial recognition can materially benefit society, as we’ve seen with Amazon Rekognition’s use to combat human trafficking, as one example. One customer alone has used Rekognition to identify over 3,000 trafficking victims. Over the past several months, we’ve talked to customers, researchers, academics, policymakers, and others to understand how to best balance the benefits of facial recognition with the potential risks. We outline clear guidelines in our documentation and blog for public safety use, where we also reiterated our support for the creation of a national legislative framework covering facial recognition. It’s worth noting, we have not seen law enforcement agencies use Amazon Rekognition to infringe on citizens’ civil liberties. We’ve received no reports of misuse of Amazon Rekognition by law enforcement agencies, and if anyone is concerned that the service is being misused, they can report it here, and we will investigate.

This post has also be updated to clarify that the proposals were non-binding.