Daijiworld Media Network - Washington (SHP)

Washington, Aug 15: The Amazon facial recognition software has added fear to the list of emotions it can recognize. The software 'Rekognition' is one of the services for developer provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS). The service helps in the analysis of emotions from the images of people's faces.

In new updates to the software, AWS is looking forward to improving the accuracy and functionality to identify gender, emotions and age. In total, the accuracy for ‘Happy’, ‘Sad’, ‘Angry’, ‘Surprised’, ‘Disgusted’, ‘Calm’ and ‘Confused' has been improved.

However, scientists have stated emotions as complex and something which cannot be accurately defined. Although precision and accuracy is achieved a smile cannot be determined as being 'Happy', a frown cannot be tagged as being sad. Apart from this, the availability of facial recognition technology has also raised concerns about its potential use in surveillance and for the possibility that it could intrude on privacy.

Facial recognition tends to even misidentify women and people of color. In a study released by ACLU back in 2018, the technology was slammed for misidentifying 28 US lawmakers. Further, Amazon has offered Rekognition to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is considered to be one of the most controversial agencies.