However, Jassy said he hopes that the federal regulators "hurry up", adding that "otherwise, you’ll have 50 different laws in 50 different states." In the past year, Amazon has found itself at the centre of a growing debate over the use of facial recognition by governments, with critics warning of false matches and arrests and proponents arguing it keeps the public safe. Jassy acknowledged that the issue around facial recognition technology was a "real one", but said "just because technology could be misused, doesn't mean you should ban or condemn it". Law enforcement in Oregon and Florida have used Amazon’s face and image ID service, known as Rekognition. While the Windows creator had defended a recent US$480mil (RM1.99bil) hardware contract to supply the US Army, it held off from selling facial recognition when it believed human rights would be at risk.

Source: The Star June 11, 2019 04:24 UTC