IBM asks Congress for police reform, leaves facial recognition business

Enlarge / IBM CEO Arvind Krishna speaking at a conference in 2016, when he was SVP and director at IBM Research. (credit: Brian Ach | Wired | Getty Images)

IBM is walking away completely from the facial recognition business, CEO Arvind Krishna announced yesterday in a letter urging Congress to act against police misconduct and regulate the way technology can be used by law enforcement.

"IBM no longer offers general purpose IBM facial recognition or analysis software," Krishna wrote bluntly in the letter. "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."

IBM is admittedly already in the middle of a massive restructuring, shedding business units and conducting layoffs, so it is possible that facial recognition was a segment of the company that might have been on the chopping block for unrelated reasons. Even if that is true, however, it doesn't make Krishna's reasoning wrong.

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