Source: Technocracy.news
Big Tech is back-peddling as fast as it can from Facial Recognition because they know they are vulnerable to charges of AI bias regarding racism. Thus, police forces will be hard-pressed to justify or purchase pre-crime software based on facial recognition.
On the heels of Amazon and IBM taking stances about selling facial-recognition technology to law enforcement officials, Microsoft officials are weighing in, again, on the issue. Microsoft President and Chief Counsel Brad Smith said today, June 11, that the company won’t sell the technology to police departments until there’s a federal law regulating the technology, as noted in a Washington Post report.
In April 2019, Microsoft refused to install facial-recognition tech in California law enforcement officers’ cars and body cameras due to human rights concerns. Today, Smith said during a Post Live event that Microsoft had not sold its facial-recognition technology to law enforcement at all. Smith also said today that Microsoft plans to put in place “review factors” that would go beyond what Microsoft already has to determine the use of facial-recognition beyond law enforcement, the Post reported.
Smith’s comments today basically echo Microsoft’s stance since 2018 when officials advocated publicly for government regulation over facial recognition technology. At that time, Microsoft officials said:
“To protect against the use of facial recognition to encroach on democratic freedoms, legislation should permit law enforcement agencies to use facial recognition to engage in ongoing surveillance of specified individuals in public spaces only when:
- a court order has been obtained to permit the use of facial recognition services for this monitoring; or
- where there is an emergency involving imminent danger or risk of death or serious physical injury to a person.”
Microsoft has been championing a number of facial-recognition principles for the past couple of years including fairness, transparency, accountability, non-discrimination, notice and consent and lawful surveillance. The surveillance principle stipulated that Microsoft “will not deploy facial-recognition technology in scenarios that we believe will put these freedoms at risk.”
