IBM Promised to Back Off Facial Recognition - Then It Signed a $69.8 Million Contract to Provide It

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

IBM has returned to the facial recognition market - just three years after announcing it was abandoning work on the technology due to concerns about racial profiling, mass surveillance, and other human rights violations.

In June 2020, as Black Lives Matter protests swept the US after George Floyd's murder, IBM chief executive Arvind Krishna wrote a letter to Congress announcing that the company would no longer offer general purpose" facial recognition technology. The fight against racism is as urgent as ever," he wrote. IBM firmly opposes and will not condone uses of any technology, including facial recognition technology offered by other vendors, for mass surveillance, racial profiling, violations of basic human rights and freedoms, or any purpose which is not consistent with our values and Principles of Trust and Transparency." Later that year, the company redoubled its commitment, calling for US export controls to address concerns that facial recognition could be used overseas to suppress dissent, to infringe on the rights of minorities, or to erase basic expectations of privacy."

Despite these announcements, last month, IBM signed a $69.8 million (54.7 million) contract with the British government to develop a national biometrics platform that will offer a facial recognition function to immigration and law enforcement officials, according to documents reviewed by The Verge and Liberty Investigates, an investigative journalism unit in the UK.

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