Microsoft has selectively refused to sell facial recognition technology to protect personal privacy

Face recognition based on artificial intelligence technology is quickly applied in society, which brings convenience and raises concerns about infringement of personal privacy. Many large technology companies that offer face recognition technology to government departments have also faced public attention, with a large number of tech workers opposed to providing face recognition technology and services to Governments or law enforcement.

According to the latest media reports，Brad Smith, President of Microsoft, the technology giant with facial recognition technology, said on Tuesday, Out of concern for human rights, Microsoft recently rejected a request from a California law enforcement agency for facial recognition technology to be installed in police officers ‘ car and body cameras.




Microsoft concluded that if the law enforcement agency adopted Microsoft’s face recognition technology, it would cause innocent women and ethnic minority groups to be disproportionately detained for questioning, as Microsoft’s artificial intelligence and face recognition software used to be trained mainly using a large number of white and male images.

A growing number of research projects have found that facial recognition mishandles women and minority populations, even raising fears of racial discrimination caused by artificial intelligence. There have also been media reports that Microsoft and IBM’s face recognition software has been found to be inaccurate in identifying black faces.




Brad Smith said, “Whenever they [California law enforcement] let anyone pull over, they want to use the suspect’s database for facial scans.” Smith did not name the agency. After considering the uneven impact of face recognition, Microsoft decided not to provide the law enforcement agency with face recognition technology.

Brad Smith also told a conference on “People-oriented artificial intelligence” at Stanford University in the United States that Microsoft had rejected a protocol to install face recognition technology on a city’s cameras.



Microsoft, on the other hand, did agree to provide the technology to a U.S. prison after concluding, In prisons, the environment in which face recognition technology is applied will be limited, and the application of this technology can improve the security of this unnamed institution.

Brad Smith explained that the decisions were part of Microsoft’s commitment to individual privacy rights, saying individual privacy rights commitments were becoming increasingly important as rapid technological advances gave law enforcement the ability to conduct comprehensive surveillance, deploy automatic weapons and take other steps that might not be reversed.

Microsoft said in December that it would make its facial recognition flaws public and ask customers to be transparent about how they intend to use it, though it did not mention the possibility of stopping selling the technology to law enforcement.



Brad Smith, who called for stricter regulation of facial recognition and other uses of artificial intelligence by government regulators, he warned in Tuesday that without doing so, companies that have accumulated the most data in the context of lax artificial intelligence regulation could win the race to develop the best artificial intelligence technology.

Brad Smith spoke with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, who urged tech companies not to develop new technologies and tools without weighing their impact.

The former President of Chile, michelle bachelet, said rights such as privacy need to be considered when developing new technologies.

So far, Microsoft has refused to sell face recognition technology to which customers, and Microsoft spokesman Frank Show FrankShaw declined to disclose the information.

Microsoft is one of the more cautious tech companies in its use of facial recognition technology. In the middle of last year, Microsoft issued a public appeal that face recognition has entered a critical moment. This technology may be abused by bad enterprises and bring bad effects to the society. The U.S. congress should discuss legislation to regulate face recognition.

In the middle of last year, it emerged that Amazon had provided face recognition technology to U.S. police at almost free prices, with customers including police in Oregon State, Orlando and other places in the United States, The news has raised concerns that authorities could violate citizens ‘ rights to individual privacy.