ACLU Tests Amazon Rekognition on the US Congress. It Matches 28 Members to Mugshots of Arrested Criminals. Disproportionately People of Color. Amazon's Response: 'They Used the Wrong Confidence Threshold.' Rekognition Is Then Sold to Orlando Police.

July 2018: ACLU runs official portraits of every US senator and representative through Amazon's commercial Rekognition API using the default 80% threshold. The system returns 28 false matches against a database of 25,000 public mugshots — 39% of the false matches are Black or Latino despite those groups making up 20% of Congress. Amazon blames the threshold. Rep. John Lewis and 5 others write an open letter. Amazon keeps selling the tool to ICE and Orlando PD until the George Floyd protests force a 2020 moratorium.