Withdrawal from face recognition market IBM “concerns that technology will promote discrimination”

IBM announced concerns that the technology is being used to promote discrimination and inequality, and announced it plans to withdraw from the market for face recognition technology for the public.

On June 8 (local time), IBM released a letter from IBM CEO on racial equality reform. Here, IBM CEO ArvindKrishna acknowledges that IBM uses all technologies, including facial recognition technologies provided by others, for violations of fundamental human rights and freedoms or for purposes not in accordance with its values, trust and transparency principles. He said he objected and said he would not tolerate it. It also added that IBM believes it is time to start a nationwide debate on whether and how to adopt facial recognition technology by domestic law enforcement agencies.

IBM announced its withdrawal from the facial recognition market on May 25 (local time) in the background of the death of George Floyd, where a black man was suffocated by a white police officer, and a protest movement against black discrimination, which grew rapidly resulting from this. It can be said that there is.

It was pointed out that face recognition technology is less accurate than before. For example, there have been reports that 28 people were misrecognized as criminals as a result of comparing the faces of legislators with criminal databases through Amazon Relognition. With the aim of improving the fairness and accuracy of these facial recognition technologies, IBM unveiled a vast data set of faces of 1 million people in January 2019. However, this dataset was problematic, as it was pointed out that the photo-sharing site Flickr photos may have been used without permission.

Reports said that IBM’s facial recognition business did not generate significant profits for the company, but the decision by the US government’s main client, IBM, is notable nonetheless. Although this decision has a business aspect, it also has an ethical aspect, and many inside the company said they were concerned about the use of facial recognition technology. Related information can be found here .