In a test conducted by the ACLU of Massachusetts, Patriots safety Duron Harmon
was among more than two-dozen professional New England athletes falsely
matched to individuals in a mugshot database by Amazon’s controversial
cloud-based Rekognition program — and he’s speaking out in support of
a proposed moratorium on government agencies in Massachusetts using
facial recognition products.
“This technology is flawed,” Harmon said in a statement Monday.
“If it misidentified me, my teammates, and other professional athletes
in an experiment, imagine the real-life impact of false matches,” he
said. “This technology should not be used by the government without
protections.”
“Amazon could require a 99% threshold as a technical matter if they
cared to. They could write it into the code, but they’ve chosen not to.
There is no guarantee that a police agency would use the stricter setting,
and there is no law that requires this.”
