Amazon indicates that the latest version of it facial recognition technology – Rekognition – can now detect fear in people’s faces. This follows on from the company specifying that its visual surveillance tool can pick out emotions like happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, disgust, calmness and confusion.
While this may spark the interest of those in the security profession the additional emotion will equally worry those who have concerns about the creep of surveillance technology in society and what this technology might potentially be used for. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has been running a campaign against the technology in general and Amazon’s market-leading technology specifically. One of the ACLU’s tactics is to shame Amazon into halting its sales of facial recognition technology, especially to law enforcement agencies.
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Concerns with facial recognition technology extend to racial bias, the intimacy of the information collected, privacy and what is done with the data (such as being given to the state without individual consent).
As well as expanding the range of emotions that can be picked out, Amazon states it has improved Rekognition’s ability to assess different age ranges, according to Engadget. The software is now able to assess age ranges across most age groups.
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Undeterred by criticisms, Amazon is expected to offer Rekognition to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), signalling a further expansion of the technology by the U.S. government and its agencies.
