Amazon has made its entry into the surveillance business with a facial recognition system, Rekognition. The product is geared towards law enforcement use, and has already been used in select police departments around the country.

The AI-based program can track, identify and analyze people in real-time. It is powerful enough to identify up to 100 people in a single image and scan the information quickly against databases.

Some are calling it a "first-of-its-kind public-private partnership."

The company’s marketing statements reveal that the product can be used for government surveillance. The Amazon team offers resources and support to help in the deployment of the program.

For example, Washington County, Oregon, built a database of at least 300,000 mugshot photos. The Washington County Sheriff’s Office and the city of Orlando are listed as its first customers. The latter, however, dropped out amidst immense backlash from the press and public.

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