announced partnerships with civil liberties organizationsindustry analysts said there was little chance that the proposal to ban rekognition would gain traction among shareholdersbut at least a few large institutional investors including the new york city pension funds which have about 1 billion in amazon holdings plan to vote in favor of the proposal for an independent report on facial surveillancewe want amazons board to oversee and disclose how amazon is addressing the significant risks posed by the sale of facial recognition technology said scott stringer the new york city comptroller and the investment adviser to the funds he described the software as a product that could lead to violations of human and civil rights around the world especially if sold to authoritarian governmentseven so that may not sway amazon whose largest investor prefers a waitandsee approach to the risks of emerging technologiestechnologies always are twosided there are ways they can be misused jeff bezos amazons chief executive said at a wired tech conference last fall adding thats always been the case and we will figure it out the last thing id ever want to do is stop the progress of new technologies even when they are dual use