Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

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."

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
IBM Will No Longer Offer, Develop, or Research Facial Recognition Technology | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 44 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by MrGuy on Tuesday June 09 2020, @10:33PM (1 child)

    by MrGuy (1007) on Tuesday June 09 2020, @10:33PM (#1005454)

    IBM is addicted to IP. They have lease the world in patents filed for and patents granted every year for decades.

    If they were really serious about being anti-facial recognition, they’d pledge to to license any of their considerable patent portfolio to anyone doing facial recognition I have zero doubt they have considerable IP on this space - it’s what they do.

    If they did that, I’d consider them truly committed. If they don’t, then this is a have-and-eat-cake situation. They don’t do any of the bad thing, but can continue to monetize the research they’ve already done by licensing their tech to firms with lesser scruples.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   0  
       Interesting=1, Overrated=1, Total=2
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  
    Total Score:   2  

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2020, @04:58AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2020, @04:58AM (#1005664)

    If they were really serious about being anti-facial recognition, they’d pledge to to license any of their considerable patent portfolio to anyone doing facial recognition

    In what weird world are you living in where pledges by IBM to license facial recognition patents would discourage use of facial recognition?

    Would make more sense if you said stuff like IBM should pledge to send "stop infringing our patents" threats to anyone doing facial recognition.