FB pixel

Microsoft joins the crowd in declining to sell facial biometrics to U.S. police until federal law in place

Microsoft joins the crowd in declining to sell facial biometrics to U.S. police until federal law in place
 

Microsoft has followed Amazon and IBM in declaring it does not sell facial recognition technology to police in the United States, because of its principles, pending the implementation of a national legal framework that will protect against its use in violating human rights.

The decision was announced by Microsoft President Brad Smith in a Washington Post Live event, at which he also said the company has not sold its facial recognition to police before. The wording of the statement seems to suggest the company will still serve federal agency customers.

Smith pointed to Microsoft’s advocacy for federal regulation and ethical principles for facial recognition

“We’ll also put in place some additional review factors so that we’re looking at other potential uses of this technology that go even beyond what we already have for other potential scenarios,” Smith said.

He also pointed out that voluntary limitations by companies attempting to act responsibly do not ensure the responsible behavior of other companies, and urged Congress to act for the good of the nation.

Voices from around the industry have been calling for federal regulation of facial recognition for some time prior to the wave of corporate announcements reflecting acknowledgement of Black Lives Matter protests throughout the U.S.

Article Topics

 |   |   |   |   | 

Latest Biometrics News

 

Biometrics disrupting the future of movement, on and offline

Biometrics are disrupting different areas of life, from how people interact with governments for basic services to the esoteric world…

 

Alexa, sue Amazon: tech giant faces class action over voice recordings

Users of Amazon’s Alexa are clear to pursue a class action over allegedly illegal recordings of private conversations. In Seattle,…

 

Epic Games provides Yoti facial age estimation to Bluesky for UK users

Social media platform Bluesky has selected Epic Games’ software, including biometrics-based age estimation from Yoti, to ensure its compliance with…

 

RealSense targets robotics, 3D facial recognition security with $50M in hand

RealSense has cut the cord tying it to Intel Corp, where the 3D camera company was born, with $50 million…

 

Will Congress reaffirm US cyber threat sharing framework before it’s too late?

As the September 30 expiration date for the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 (CISA 2015) rapidly approaches, Congress faces…

 

World pauses German operations for Orb update amid regulatory faceoff

World is facing a potential cease-and-desist order in the Philippines, and has put its iris scanning stations on hold in…

Comments

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Biometric Market Analysis

Most Viewed This Week

Featured Company

Biometrics Insight, Opinion

Digital ID In-Depth

Biometrics White Papers

Biometrics Events