Change of direction at IBM, the CEO of the company, Arvind Krishna, announces in a letter to stop all development or research in the field of facial recognition. In 2018, it was discovered that IBM had developed for the New York police, an algorithm capable of recognizing an individual based on many parameters, such as their skin color, hair, clothing, etc. Today, the company is doing an about-face and no longer wants to be a player in facial recognition.
“IBM strongly opposes and will not tolerate the use of any [facial recognition] technology, including facial recognition technology offered by other vendors, for mass surveillance, racial profiling, violations of fundamental human rights and freedoms, or any other purpose inconsistent with our values and principles of trust and transparency,” writes Arvind Krishna, in a letter addressed to the US Congress. The CEO assures that this change of vision began before the recent protests in the US, but the death of George Floyd only accelerated the decision. Indeed, at the beginning of 2019, IBM was already committed to offering tools to avoid bias in its software. The goal was to provide a database that was more representative of the population.
Last March, IBM went so far as to team up with Microsoft and the Vatican to try to regulate the use of facial recognition. Ultimately, the American company simply abandoned this very promising market. The goal is to show its commitment against all discrimination. It is also a strong signal sent to the American authorities, as stated in the letter: "We believe that the time has come to begin a national dialogue on the appropriateness and manner in which facial recognition technology should be used by national law enforcement authorities." In other words, IBM wants the United States to significantly change its methods of using and feeding facial recognition.
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