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Microsoft Joins Amazon, IBM in Restricting Police Use of Facial Recognition Tech
By: TheStreet | June 11, 2020

• The companies urged lawmakers to establish rules governing the use of the technology by law enforcement.

Following similar moves by other tech giants, Microsoft (MSFT) said Thursday that it will not sell facial-recognition technology to U.S. police departments until there is a federal law regulating it.

Microsoft president Brad Smith announced the decision at a live event with the Washington Post on Thursday, joining Amazon (AMZN) in calling on U.S. lawmakers to establish laws governing the use of facial recognition technology by law enforcement.

Facial recognition tech in policing is controversial, with civil liberties groups pointing out its potential to deepen existing racial disparities in policing. In 2018, the ACLU published a study which found that Rekognition, Amazon's facial recognition tech, incorrectly matched photos of 28 members of Congress with arrest mugshots of other people. The false matches occurred disproportionately among people of color. And several other studies of facial recognition software have confirmed a higher incidence of false positives among African Americans and other people of color.

On Monday, Amazon (AMZN) announced a one-year moratorium on selling Rekognition to law enforcement agencies, while also urging Congress to establish rules governing its use.

The tech companies' pledges to restrict facial recognition arrived two weeks after the killing of George Floyd at the hands of a Minnesota police officer, which have sparked nationwide protests of racial disparities in law enforcement.

Earlier this week, IBM (IBM) CEO Arvind Krishna sent a letter to Congress which said that the tech company will no longer sell, develop or research facial recognition technology.

"IBM no longer offers general purpose IBM facial recognition or analysis software," Krishna wrote. "IBM firmly opposes and will not condone uses of any technology, including facial recognition technology offered by other vendors, for mass surveillance, racial profiling, violations of basic human rights and freedoms, or any purpose which is not consistent with our values and Principles of Trust and Transparency. We believe now is the time to begin a national dialogue on whether and how facial recognition technology should be employed by domestic law enforcement agencies."

Microsoft initially called on lawmakers to regulate the use of facial recognition two years ago, writing in a blog post that the "only way to regulate this broad use is for the government to do so."

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