International Business Machines Chief Executive Officer Arvind Krishna, on Monday, said the company is no longer offering general-purpose facial recognition or analysis software, CNBC 
The IBM CEO said artificial intelligence can be a “powerful tool” to help law enforcement keep citizens safe, but there is a need to ensure that the technology is “tested for bias,” and such bias is audited and reported.
[Ed. note: In the letter, Krishna also wrote that “national policy also should encourage and advance uses of technology that bring greater transparency and accountability to policing, such as body cameras and modern data analytics techniques.”]
Sources familiar with the matter told CNBC that the facial recognition business wasn’t profitable to IBM, and the decision was based both on ethical and practical grounds.
Why It Matters
Krishna was writing to Congress calling for police reforms in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd and the resultant widespread protests across the U.S.
Floyd, a Minneapolis black man, died following an encounter with the police, where a white police officer knelt on his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, even as Floyd fell unconscious, an official complaint in the matter said.
The death of Floyd again highlighted the problem of systematic racial profiling in the country. Major technology giants, including Apple and Amazon, have faced criticism for racial bias in their facial recognition technology.
This story originally appeared on Benzinga.
© 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
