Amazon to continue pause on police use of facial recognition technology

Amazon said Tuesday that it will continue to ban police use of its face-recognition technology beyond the one-year ban it announced last year.

Amazon and other technology companies have been under pressure from civil rights activists and their own workers to halt the sale of face-recognition technology to law enforcement agencies because they can incorrectly identify people with darker skin, which Amazon has denied. At least seven states already have enacted restrictions limiting government use of the technology and several others are debating bills.

Last June, Amazon announced that it would pause use of its facial-recognition technology, which is called Rekognition, for a year.