Developing facial recognition tech seems to be the rage these days, although there have been many privacy proponents who feel that the tech would be an invasion of their privacy. The good news is that if you’ve always felt a bit uncomfortable with the idea of facial recognition, at least one company will stop developing them.In an announcement by IBM’s CEO Arvind Krishna, he has sent a letter to congress in which he announced that the company has exited its “general purpose” facial recognition business. According to Krishna, this is because the company “firmly opposes” the use of the technology as they believe it would violate “basic human rights and freedoms”.
While the CEO does not deny that its use would be a powerful in terms of law enforcement, he thinks that the tech needs to be kept in check with audits for bias. According to Krishna, “We believe now is the time to begin a national dialogue on whether and how facial recognition technology should be employed by domestic law enforcement agencies.”
IBM is definitely not alone in developing the technology, but given their size and reputation, perhaps their decision could make some waves and cause other companies to follow suit.