Police in Florida have dropped Amazon's facial recognition technology because of glitches and resourcing issues

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Police in Florida have dropped Amazon's facial recognition technology because of glitches and resourcing issues

Rekognition demo2

Amazon Web Services

Amazon's Rekognition software in action.

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  • A pilot test to bring Amazon's controversial facial recognition technology to the Orlando Police Department ended on Thursday, according to Orlando Weekly.
  • The technology is designed to use facial recognition algorithms to find and track suspects in real-time.
  • A police officer uploads a photo of someone's face to the system and receives an alert when Rekognition has found a match within live surveillance camera streams.
  • But technology glitches and a lack of resources meant that the city never got the technology working properly.
  • The news was celebrated by the American Civil Liberties Union, which protested the pilot and said Amazon shouldn't be allowed to sell the technology law enforcement for privacy reasons.
  • Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

A pilot test to bring Amazon's controversial facial recognition technology to the Orlando Police Department came to a grinding halt on Thursday after more than 15 months of testing.

According to Orlando Weekly, city police ended the experiment after they failed to get the technology working properly thanks to technical issues and not having enough resources.

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Amazon's technology is designed to use facial recognition algorithms to find and track suspects in real-time. Amazon said the software was previously used to rescue victims of human trafficking, for example.

The idea was that an Orlando police officer would upload a photo of someone's face to the system and receive an alert when Rekognition found a match within live surveillance camera streams. Cameras were placed around Orlando and in the police headquarters.

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But according to Orlando Weekly, many of the city's surveillance cameras were not compatible with the technology and while Amazon did offer to supply its own cameras, the city reportedly declined.

A spokesperson for Amazon did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

"The city was not able to dedicate the resources to the pilot to enable us to make any noticeable progress toward completing the needed configuration and testing," Orlando's chief administrative office wrote in a memo to City Council, according to Orlando Weekly. The office said that the city has "no immediate plans regarding future pilots to explore this type of facial recognition technology."

Read more: Artificial intelligence experts from Facebook, Google, and Microsoft called on Amazon not to sell its facial recognition software to police

The news was celebrated by the American Civil Liberties Union, which protested the pilot and said Amazon shouldn't be allowed to sell the technology law enforcement for privacy reasons.

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"Congratulations to the Orlando Police Department for finally figuring out what we long warned - Amazon's surveillance technology doesn't work and is a threat to our privacy and civil liberties," an ACLU representative told The Verge.

Human rights groups say that Amazon shouldn't be allowed to sell the technology to law enforcement or the government because of privacy issues. Moreover, they question its level of accuracy.

Last July, the ACLU found that the facial recognition software incorrectly identified 28 members of Congress with images of people who had been arrested, for example. Amazon has disputed the reliability of this study.

The ACLU's campaigning was carried forward by shareholders in May, who put forward a proposal to stop Amazon from selling facial recognition software to government agencies. The idea was voted down by investors.

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