I agree in general with the spirit of the article, at least as I understood it: facial recognition can empower oppression and lead to even more doubtful convictions, for example it could erroneously supply additional rationale to suspect or convict a person, reinforce biases, etc.

However, I do not get the "companies unite against selling X to government" approach. It is, to me, both misguided (restricting gov't from buying something private companies can buy will simply lead to relabeling or minor redesigns of the same technology) and naive (to work, it needs a very broad agreement which IMO will not get enough traction).

An approach that could work better is to inform, not restrict: make sure that all imagery and videos used or considered for use police are public unless there is a short term, limited exception. And make police wear cameras whenever they wear uniforms and make those video streams public, too (maybe with a few hour lag in case there is a tactical need). My 2c.