It will be several days before the resolutions’ supporters know exactly by how much they lost. Even if the margin is large, these issues aren’t going away anytime soon. “These proposals, to be effective and to attract the attention of a company, they don’t need to be a 50 percent vote,” says Michael Connor, the executive director of Open MIC, a nonprofit that works with tech investors and helped write the facial recognition proposals. “It takes a long time to educate people about these issues and to bring major shareholders on.”
Amazon Faces Investor Pressure Over Facial Recognition
“We’re not Luddites, we’re not anti-technology,” said Michael Connor, the executive director of Open MIC, a nonprofit group that works with activist investors in the tech sector and helped draft the facial surveillance proposals with Amazon shareholders. “But we do think all these technologies have to be handled and introduced in a responsible way.”
Taser stun gun maker files facial recognition patents
Michael Connor, executive director at campaign group Open Mic, said it was dangerous for companies to be “paving the way” for the roll-out of facial recognition products without having thought it through. “AI experts say we’re not there yet,” he said, pointing to a study by MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini, which found that two leading facial recognition programmes misidentified black women up to 35 per cent of the time.
Amazon says face recognition fears are “insignificant.” The SEC disagrees
On Friday, lawyers for Amazon filed a last-ditch request asking the SEC to reconsider its judgement, but on Tuesday the Division denied that request. “As a result, there will be two shareholder proposals regarding facial recognition on the ballot at Amazon this year,” said Michael Connor of Open Mic, a nonprofit focused on corporate accountability that helped organize the effort.
