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Amazon Rekognition makes leaving your house an invitation to surveillance

Facial recognition software has the potential to transform our surveillance ability: for better or for worse.
Flickr Photo/Sam Cox (CC BY 2.0)/flic.kr/p/S7S39Y
Facial recognition software has the potential to transform our surveillance ability: for better or for worse.

So you're walking down the street - probably not making eye contact with anyone, if you're from Seattle. But with Amazon's help, even if you're not looking at anyone, law enforcement might be looking at you.

The tool at issue is called Rekognition, which allows anyone who purchases it to upload a dataset of still and moving images, then check another image against it.

Supporters say it's just an enhanced version of what police have always done. Detractors, like the ACLU, contend that it raises real privacy concerns about the ability to conduct surveillance in real time. The New York Times' Nick Wingfield wrote about it, and joined Bill Radke in the studio to discuss its applications in policing, as well as the American attitude toward surveillance and privacy.

Year started with KUOW: 1985 – 1986, 1991 – 2004, 2012