> It's not up to the company to protect civil rights through limiting the use of their product -- that's the job of the government.
People and companies have a responsibility to behave ethically, whether the law specifies that or not.
People and companies have a responsibility to behave ethically, whether the law specifies that or not.
AFAIK Rekognition just takes in a face and spits out an ID that you can use to identify an already known face. This doesn't seem inherently bad to me. Any misuse or profiling in this case is designed, managed, and implemented by law enforcement and the moral responsibility lies with those who create the policy, not a tool that they use to enforce it.
Second, they actively market to law enforcement.
Regarding actively marketing to law enforcement, is there any law enforcement use case that is not unethical? For example, if a facial recognition system is set up to only alert on faces that are listed in the Interpol Most Wanted list is that system unethical?
It seems that there's a moral line between identifying faces and profiling/targeting people arbitrarily. It's impossible for Amazon to know how any given customer will use its products before they actually use them so the only reasonable ethical expectation is for Amazon to outline improper uses in its TOS and go from there.
EDIT: What if the above facial recognition system doesn't use automated software but instead relies on humans reviewing video feeds and trying to determine if a face matches one on the list? Does that change anything?
Law enforcement is the tool designed by the society to maintain the law. That inevitably lead to conflict with civil rights and abuse of power. A healthy democracy needs to protect human rights while giving the law enforcement the tools they need to effectively do their job. Constitution, legal framework, and freedom of expression are essential.
Yes. The police state is unethical and doing anything to further it is unethical.
Nor is there anything inherently unethical (read: necessarily harmful) about manufacturing and selling opiates, narcotics, bombs, or guns.
The issue comes down to where along the product lifecycle you decide to end or limit the responsibility for how the product you build and design is used. And the mental calculations you do to weigh the positives/negatives of the technology you create and sell.
Obviously a manufacturer of bombs knows their product is going to be used to kill. If your code of ethics dictates that murder is bad, the calculation becomes - how "involved/complicit" am I in murder if I build the tools to murder, but don't use the tools myself. If we don't kill the bad guys, they might kill us. And hey, everyone in this society that pays taxes to fund these military and defense programs is complicit. I'm just doing what society needs to protect itself.
With facial recognition technology, if your code of ethics dictates that potential invasion of privacy/government tracking is bad, you would do a similar calculation. These people tracked are already in a database of "bad people" (aren't they? am I and my family in a database? do I have anything to hide?) - and society dictates we need this for our own protection, so what's the problem? If I make enough money selling these systems, I can buy my way to privacy, isn't that the way it should be?
Different people will come to different conclusions...there's no cut and dry answer, and infinite justifications for producing and selling any powerful technology/tool.
What is or isn't acceptable use of facial recognition tech is not an easy question to answer; I don't have an answer. Those making and using it have a duty to give it serious thought and adjust their actions accordingly.
You are paying the salaries of the people you claim are acting unethically. That seems like more direct involvement than what amazon is doing.