Amazon and IBM lately jumped on the Black Lives Matter bandwagon, with Amazon saying they have been placing a 1-year moratorium on gross sales of Facial Recognition expertise to legislation enforcement companies in USA, saying they have been awaiting federal laws to make sure law-enforcement companies didn’t abuse the fallible expertise.
Today Microsoft made the same announcement, with Microsoft president Brad Smith saying:
“We will not sell facial-recognition technology to police departments in the United States until we have a national law in place, grounded in human rights that will govern this technology.”
On high of federal regulation, Microsoft mentioned they are going to do their very own assessment which works “even beyond what we already have” to make sure wherever the expertise is deployed it’s used appropriately.
“The bottom line for us is to protect the human rights of people as this technology is deployed,” Smith mentioned.
For some, it might appear to be Microsoft is following Amazon’s lead, however not like Amazon, which has been promoting its Amazon Rekognition software program to legislation enforcement for years, Microsoft has at all times barred such gross sales.
In 2019 Microsoft obtained a request from a California legislation enforcement company’s to put in facial recognition expertise in officers’ automobiles and physique cameras. Since Microsoft’s face recognition tech could result in extra circumstances of mistaken identification with girls and minorities, many harmless individuals will get affected if this tech is deployed broadly. Taking an moral stand, Microsoft has determined to not promote its expertise.
In the identical yr Amazon shareholders defeated a movement to halt Amazon’s sale of its facial recognition expertise to US police forces. Amazon itself had tried to dam the votes however was informed by the Securities and Exchange Commission that it didn’t have the correct to take action.
Microsoft has at all times been fairly vocal about its views on the necessity for presidency regulation and accountable business measures to handle advancing facial recognition expertise. Microsoft additionally revealed the ideas that may information them in how they develop and deploy facial recognition expertise.
These included:
Fairness. We will work to develop and deploy facial recognition expertise in a way that strives to deal with all individuals pretty.Transparency. We will doc and clearly talk the capabilities and limitations of facial recognition expertise.Accountability. We will encourage and assist our clients to deploy facial recognition expertise in a way that ensures an acceptable stage of human management for makes use of which will have an effect on individuals in consequential methods.Non-discrimination. We will prohibit in our phrases of service using facial recognition expertise to have interaction in illegal discrimination.Notice and consent. We will encourage non-public sector clients to offer discover and safe consent for the deployment of facial recognition expertise.Lawful surveillance. We will advocate for safeguards for individuals’s democratic freedoms in legislation enforcement surveillance situations and won’t deploy facial recognition expertise in situations that we imagine will put these freedoms in danger.
Despite Microsoft’s efforts, the corporate seems to not have obtained a lot credit score for his or her opposition, with Joy Buolamwini, a MIT Media Lab researcher who wrote on Amazon’s Rekognition software program saying: “Microsoft also needs to take a stand.”
Fortunately for all Microsoft has made their very own resolution properly earlier than the present disaster.
