Matt Cagle, Technology and Civil Liberties Attorney, ACLU of Northern California & Nicole Ozer, Technology & Civil Liberties Director, ACLU of California

Amazon, which got its start selling books and still bills itself as “Earth’s most customer-centric company,” has officially entered the surveillance business. 

The company has developed a powerful and dangerous new facial recognition system and is actively helping governments deploy it. Amazon calls the service “Rekognition.” 

Marketing materials and documents obtained by ACLU affiliates in three states reveal a product that can be readily used to violate civil liberties and civil rights. Powered by artificial intelligence, Rekognition can identify, track, and analyze people in real time and recognize up to 100 people in a single image. It can quickly scan information it collects against databases featuring tens of millions of faces, according to Amazon. 

Amazon is marketing Rekognition for government surveillance. According to its marketing materials, it views deployment by law enforcement agencies as a “common use case” for this technology. Among other features, the company’s materials describe “person tracking” as an “easy and accurate” way to investigate and monitor people. Amazon says Rekognition can be used to identify “people of interest,” raising the possibility that those labeled suspicious by governments — such as undocumented immigrants or Black activists — will be seen as fair game for Rekognition surveillance. It also says Rekognition can monitor “all faces in group photos, crowded events, and public places such as airports,” at a time when Americans are joining public protests at unprecedented levels. 

Amazon’s Rekognition raises profound civil liberties and civil rights concerns. Today, the ACLU and a coalition of civil rights organizations demanded that Amazon stop allowing governments to use Rekognition. 

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Tell Amazon to get out of the surveillance business

Amazon not only markets Rekognition as a law enforcement service, it is helping governments deploy it. Amazon lists the city of Orlando, Florida, and the Washington County Sheriff’s Office in Oregon among its customers. Upon learning this, the ACLU Foundations of California coordinated with the ACLU of Oregon and the ACLU of Florida on public records requests to learn more. 

The documents we obtained indicate that the Washington County sheriff and the city of Orlando became Rekognition customers in 2017. Washington County has since built a database of at least 300,000 mugshot photos to use in coordination with Rekognition. It also built a mobile app for its deputies to quickly scan for a match against the county’s database by submitting images obtained from surveillance or other sources. 

Amazon is providing company resources to help government agencies deploy Rekognition. In emails between Amazon and Washington County employees, the company offers the expertise of the Rekognition product team, troubleshoots problems encountered by the county, and provides “best practices” advice on how to deploy the service. In what Orlando’s police chief praises as a “first-of-its-kind public-private partnership,” Amazon promised free consulting services to build a Rekognition “proof of concept” for the city. Rekognition face surveillance is now operating across Orlando in real-time, according to Amazon, allowing the company to search for “people of interest” as footage rolls in from “cameras all over the city.” 

In the records, Amazon also solicits feedback and ideas for “potential enhancements” to Rekognition’s capabilities for governments. Washington County even signed a non-disclosure agreement created by Amazon to get “insight into the Rekognition roadmap” and provide additional feedback about the product. The county later cited this NDA to justify withholding documents in response to the ACLU’s public records request. 

The documents also revealed that Amazon offered to connect Washington County with other Amazon government customers interested in Rekognition — as well as a body camera manufacturer. Indeed, Amazon’s promotional materials previously recommended that law enforcement use Rekognition to identify people in police body camera footage. The company removed mention of police body cameras from its site after the ACLU raised concerns in discussions with Amazon. That appears to be the extent of its response to our concerns. This and other profoundly troubling surveillance practices are still permissible under the company’s policies. 

With Rekognition, a government can now build a system to automate the identification and tracking of anyone. If police body cameras, for example, were outfitted with facial recognition, devices intended for officer transparency and accountability would further transform into surveillance machines aimed at the public. With this technology, police would be able to determine who attends protests. ICE could seek to continuously monitor immigrants as they embark on new lives. Cities might routinely track their own residents, whether they have reason to suspect criminal activity or not. As with other surveillance technologies, these systems are certain to be disproportionately aimed at minority communities. 

Because of Rekognition’s capacity for abuse, we asked Washington County and Orlando for any records showing that their communities had been provided an opportunity to discuss the service before its acquisition. We also asked them about rules governing how the powerful surveillance system could be used and ensuring rights would be protected. Neither locality identified such records. In fact, Washington County began using Rekognition even as employees raised questions internally. In one email, a Washington County employee expressed the concern that the “ACLU might consider this the government getting in bed with big data.” That employee’s prediction was correct. 

People should be free to walk down the street without being watched by the government. By automating mass surveillance, facial recognition systems like Rekognition threaten this freedom, posing a particular threat to communities already unjustly targeted in the current political climate. Once powerful surveillance systems like these are built and deployed, the harm will be extremely difficult to undo. 

If Rekognition is not reined in, its use is also certain to spread. The records we obtained show that law enforcement agencies in California and Arizona have contacted Washington County asking about Rekognition. So have multiple “fusion centers,” which collect information about people for dissemination across agencies at the local and federal level. 

Amazon has publicly opposed secretive government surveillance. Its CEO, Jeff Bezos, has himself criticized Trump administration’s discriminatory Muslim ban. But actions speak louder than words, and Amazon’s efforts to deploy this technology run counter to its proclaimed values and risk harm to the company’s customers and their communities. 

My name is Liv Funk, and I’m writing this to explain why I want changes to how LGBTQ students are treated at North Bend High School in Oregon.

This is very personal for me. I’m about to graduate from North Bend, but I’m continuing to speak up so that nobody else has to go through what I went through. When freshmen arrive in the fall, I want them to have a different experience: a school where everybody feels welcome and safe, no matter who they are or whose hand they happen to hold.

I had hoped to be treated just like anyone else after I came out before my sophomore year. But I guess I was wrong. Back in 2015, when I held my then-girlfriend’s hand in the hallway on the first day of school, I couldn’t even count how many people gave us weird looks and how many whispers filled the air. I even heard teachers make hurtful comments.

I knew coming out wasn’t going to be easy. But I didn’t expect it to be this hard. After being subjected to slurs and teasing, I became anxious and paranoid. I started to wonder: What if something is really wrong with me? What if who I am really isn’t ok?

Things escalated slowly. Looks and stares eventually turned into laughs and slurs. People would turn their backs to me and fake-cough while saying “faggot.” If I happened to sit next to a girl, they’d make a big show of moving away.

One of the first major incidents happened just a couple months after the start of my sophomore year. My girlfriend and I were walking to her car. The principal’s son was in his car and accelerated very close to us, yelling “faggot” out the window as he drove away.

I was so scared in the immediate aftermath. But then I just kind of normalized it. That’s just what happens at school, I reasoned to myself, especially if the bully is the principal’s son and on the football team.

I went to the principal a few times that year, but he never did anything. And then more physical stuff started happening.

One day, I was leaving the bathroom of our tech building when a girl and her friend came in. I didn’t want to bump into them, so I stood by the wall. But then one of the girls pushed me by my shoulders, pinned me against the wall, and called me a “dyke.”

In my junior year, I was physically assaulted for being gay again. This time it resulted in x-rays, and the school police officer telling me I’m going to hell.

That attack happened on what some people call the “smoker’s trail,” a small cement path hidden between a line of trees and a fence. It juts out from the northwest corner of the school and down a small hill down to an area where people often get picked up after class.

Two boys were on the path yelling slurs, and I told them they were being offensive. I told them I was gay and had a girlfriend and that they may not want to say that.

One of them said, “Well, I fucking hate homos,” and then he whacked my ankle with his skateboard. I reached out to stop him from hitting me again, but he grabbed his skateboard again and smashed my right hand.

My hand hurt so bad and swelled up like a balloon. Eventually, my mom had to take me to the doctor.

I was initially too nervous to tell school administrators. I didn’t trust the administration, especially after learning the principal made my friend, who was openly bisexual, read the Bible. But my friend Hailey really thought I should talk to someone, so she made sure I did.

I spoke with the school resource officer and gave him a rundown of what happened. His response was stunning, but not surprising in hindsight. He said that if I’m going to be an open member of the LGBT community that I should prepare for things like this. The officer said that being gay was a choice, and it was against his religion. He said that he had homosexual friends, but because I was an open homosexual, I was going to hell.

Yes, right there in his office, inside the school, he straight up told me I was going to hell. That was his response to me getting attacked.

I told the principal about the incident and the officer’s response, but he chose to ignore it. The principal’s rationale was that what the boys did to me happened a few yards from school property. That was confusing. I know a bunch of my friends had gotten in trouble down on that path for smoking or other things. The principal chose not to take action when it was an assault for being gay, but for any other reason, he was happy to step in.

I felt so defeated after that. I had dealt with so much. The offensive comments and “jokes” from students and teachers in the hallways and in class. The constant slurs hurled my way. The assaults. Getting told I was going to hell. The lack of action no matter how many times things were reported. The retaliation faced by the staff members who did try to help us. The refusal to do anti-discrimination training.

Everything added up.

I later learned Hailey and I could file a complaint with the Oregon Department of Education and some extremely supportive people helped us do that. I never imagined anything would actually be done: I thought people wouldn’t think it was a big deal, that it didn’t matter, that this is normal. It wasn’t until I met with the ACLU that I realized this is actually happening; that this matters; and that what happened to me isn’t actually ok.

I’m graduating now, but I still want systemic change at North Bend High School. I want what happened at North Bend to remind the country that public schools should be safe places for students in every way. If you are being discriminated against by staff or students at any public school, or anywhere, I want you to know that what’s happening is not ok and you’re not alone.

You are not weird. You are not sick. You are not a problem. You are loved. You have the right to learn, flourish, and be accepted for who you are.

Mat dos Santos, Legal Director, ACLU of Oregon & Kelly Simon, Staff Attorney, ACLU of Oregon

Last month, a professor at Willamette University College of Law reached out to our office for help on a case her student-run legal clinic had been working on. It was, Professor Warren Binford said, one of the worst cases of discrimination at a school that she had ever seen in Oregon. In our job, we hear a lot of awful and heartbreaking cases, but the cruel treatment of LGBTQ students at North Bend High School shocked us.

LGBTQ students at the rural school on the Oregon coast have been harassed, threatened, bullied, and assaulted just for being who they are. What is worse is that when these students turned to the adults in charge to protect them, the school administrators, teachers, and staff ignored their pleas for help. Instead they  told one of our clients she was going to hell for being gay, subjected LGBTQ students to harsher discipline than their straight peers, and equated homosexuality with bestiality. We also learned that both LGBTQ students and straight students have been forced to recite Bible passages as a punishment.

This is wrong on so many levels. The law specifically protects young LGBTQ people in school from bullying and being punished more harshly than their straight peers. Public schools aren’t allowed to force students to read the Bible for punishment or any other reason. That the school needed the Oregon Department of Education to step in to stop such clear violations of the law is astounding.

Two brave young women, Liv and Hailey, have been fighting to change their school. With the help of a friendly school counselor and Willamette Law’s legal clinic, they took their case to the Oregon Department of Education. The agency conducted a months-long investigation and found substantial evidence of discrimination and other violations of state and federal law. 

Details of the cases were leaked to the local paper, and the school district has tried to downplay what happened. We have heard from a number of other current and former students, teachers, and other district staff who witnessed or were subjected to this kind of mistreatment at North Bend High School. Most of them are still too afraid of the current administration to come forward with their complaints.

Liv and Hailey have asked for serious changes at the school. For them, policy on paper isn’t enough if it isn’t enforced, and they want to make sure that other students will not have to face discrimination at school again. The school refused to make the changes, so, with our help, Liv and Hailey are continuing to pursue their case. Next week, there will be a hearing in their case, and we will represent them. Liv and Hailey will ask the state Education Department to affirm its finding of substantial evidence of discrimination and demand that North Bend high school administrators be held accountable.

It is clear that the school is not doing its job of protecting and treating all students fairly. Every kid deserves to have a safe and welcoming school, no matter their sexual orientation, gender identity, race or ethnicity, disability, or religious beliefs. Whether you live in a big city or a small town, the law and the Constitution protect the right to an education free from discrimination. 

If you or anyone you know has experienced discrimination or mistreatment at a public school in Oregon, please reach out to us.