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IBM Will No Longer Offer, Develop, or Research Facial Recognition Technology

posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday June 09 2020, @06:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the tides-are-turning dept.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for RandomFactor:

IBM will no longer offer, develop, or research facial recognition technology:

IBM will no longer offer general purpose facial recognition or analysis software, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said in a letter to Congress today. The company will also no longer develop or research the technology, IBM tells The Verge. Krishna addressed the letter to Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Reps. Karen Bass (D-CA), Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), and Jerrold Nadler (D-NY).

"IBM firmly opposes and will not condone uses of any [facial recognition] 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," Krishna said in the letter. "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."

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  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday June 09 2020, @06:39PM (2 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 09 2020, @06:39PM (#1005312) Journal

    Maybe it costs too much to develop? And maybe IBM doesn't want to admit that? Maybe IBM is behind in developing this? Maybe mainframes, despite a few unique advantages, aren't cost effective for the task. Maybe facial recognition is too far away from IBM's actual business? IBM's hardware can still run someone else's facial recognition tech. After all, why isn't IBM developing self driving car tech?

    Despite the huge splash Watson made some years back, I rarely if ever seem to hear of it any more.

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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 09 2020, @07:15PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 09 2020, @07:15PM (#1005331) Journal

    Maybe IBM is behind in developing this?

    Gets my vote.

  • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday June 10 2020, @02:40AM

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Wednesday June 10 2020, @02:40AM (#1005614) Journal

    > IBM's hardware can still run someone else's facial recognition tech.

    This is what I think. In recent years, IBM has focused on iron, so to speak.