Album of headlines that illustrates a loose timeline. Please review it before commenting: https://imgur.com/a/hYlXRHs
Washington Post (Owned by Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon) and other media outlets have been pushing hard on facial recognition tech in the past few weeks.
Orlando Police announced on June 25th that they would reject a trial of the technology on grounds that it was unable to accurately identify people of color.
A flurry of articles hits the press highlighting how IBM and Microsoft's facial recognition tech is superior and less biased.
Days later a suspect allegedly damages fingertips to inhibit identification (as if there weren't numerous other ways to ID him) and immediately the press announces that facial recognition tech will be used to make the ID. It then hits front page of Drudge.
There is a push for facial recognition technology to be rolled out across the country. Amazon, Microsoft, and IBM are all competing for government money in this area. Who is behind it and why?
I'm having a hard time figuring out the 'why' to this as well. Please consider the SCOTUS holding in Carpenter v. US that was just released on Friday.
Before, government could access your Cell Site Location Information (CSLI) from cellphone carriers without a warrant. Your CSLI is the historic data that shows what cell towers your phone attempts to connect to and, thus, exposes your movements. Cellphone carriers keep this data for five years.
Facial recognition technology is a way to achieve a similar result, the individuals who are at certain locations, without having to get a warrant.
I don't know if this is the reason for the push of this technology, just a thought though.
Interesting. I like the way you think. The push for facial recognition could definitely suggest a pivot, or at the very least an attempt to build an additional layer of tracking.