Many people recognize Amazon as the quintessential online retailer as well as one of the first of its kind, but recent years have shown just how far the internet marketplace's influence can be spread. Now, Amazon has an option for its consumers in any category imaginable; from music to movies to home operating systems. But what they provide today pales in comparison to what they propose providing in the future. For instance, Amazon will sell local law enforcement a facial recognition software that allows them to identify and monitor an estimated one hundred people at a given time in a given location.
Naturally, this has upset man groups who feel threatened by law enforcement's ability to identify them in this way and have subsequently asked Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to stop selling the software altogether. But as of the time of publishing Bezos has refrained from commenting on the issue. As it stands, the extent that most groups who feel threatened by this facial recognition software can do is send out emails and newsletters to rally support.
However, it does bear thinking about the kind of people that would be spurred to act just at the thought that law enforcement may be able to pick them out of a crowd. Seeing as a right to peacefully gather or protest in honor of a cause is a protected right, it stands to reason that the people who are afraid of being found out by the authorities are those who intend to do otherwise and are afraid of the prospect of no longer being able to use anonymity to avoid criminal charges.
Others argue that the people who feel personally threatened are not the issue and that the existence and implication of the software at all is an infringement on our collective right to privacy. This mentality is placed alongside the aforementioned fear tactics in the emails being sent out to rally people against it. The unfortunate truth is that this is something of a moot point in our modern day. The software Amazon is selling didn't simply materialize out of nothing. The unfortunate fact is that if it is able to be marketed to local law enforcement, federal law enforcement has had it for years and likely has a better version. So, unfortunately, the application of this software is inevitable and this whole discussion essentially comes down to a matter of how aware people are of the extent to which they can be tracked. Compared to the amount of information available to people through the records kept by Facebook, police having facial recognition software means very little.
But in the midst of discussing the implications and potential infringements of the technology, it is important to remember that Amazon is not offering this software to law enforcement as any sort of activism or political statement, they are marketing a product that their consumer will be interested in buying. The software and technology exist and there is a market for it, so Amazon is willing to sell. Amazon is, after all, the quintessential online retailer.
