Facial-Recognition Backlash Brews After Fury Over Police Conduct

When the American Civil Liberties Union ran a test of Amazon.com Inc.’s facial recognition technology, the software falsely matched 28 members of Congress, many of them minorities, with mugshots of arrested people from police files.

Now, some of those lawmakers are drafting new legislation to curtail the use of facial recognition by police departments and government agencies. They’re looking to harness the public outrage over police misconduct and racial inequities, which have also put tech companies on the defensive over their sales of these products.

Civil-rights advocates have long complained that facial recognition tools promote bias by misidentifying people ...