Lawmakers Press Amazon on Face-Scanning Tech Pitched to ICE

Published Nov. 30, 2018 12:21PM ET

Brian Snyder/Reuters

Eight Democratic lawmakers led by Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) and Reps. Jimmy Gomez (D-CA) and Luis Gutiérrez (D-IL) pressed Amazon for answers about the online giant’s efforts to sell controversial real-time facial-recognition technology to law-enforcement agencies. In a Thursday letter to CEO Jeff Bezos, the congressmen cited a Daily Beast and Project on Government Oversight scoop about Amazon’s attempts to pitch its face-scanning system—dubbed Rekognition—to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and said the company “failed to provide sufficient answers” to previous congressional inquiries about the system.

Read it at Sen. Ed Markey

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