Tech companies specializing in facial recognition are seeking out public-private partnerships with law enforcement agencies. MIT researcher Joy Buolamwini says this could undermine the growing movement to defund the police if the call is not linked to a divestment from surveillance technology as well. "When resources are scarce, technology is viewed as the answer — to save money, to be more efficient," says Buolamwini, whose research shows that across hundreds of facial recognition algorithms, Asian and African American faces were 10 to 100 times more likely to be misidentified than white faces. "The technologies that can come into play can become highly optimized tools for oppression and suppression."

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