<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Just a few days later, however, Microsoft president Brad Smith gave some credence to those worries in a blog post calling for Congress to regulate the use of facial recognition technology in the U.S. before it’s too late.</span></p><p><div data-conversation-spotlight=""></div></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“All tools can be used for good or ill,” </span><a href="https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2018/07/13/facial-recognition-technology-the-need-for-public-regulation-and-corporate-responsibility/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">he wrote</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. “Facial recognition technology raises issues that go to the heart of fundamental human rights protections like privacy and freedom of expression.”</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Microsoft’s choice to address these issues by calling for regulation was reminiscent of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s comment to Congress in March that, “Actually, I’m not sure we shouldn’t be regulated.” Zuckerberg was concerned about political organizations using his platform to spread false news or damaging information (and about being perceived as partial to one political party over the other); Smith of Microsoft is worried about the government using its technology to probe citizens’ lives and infringe upon their rights.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Smith’s blog post was in line with his company’s recent efforts to </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/13/technology/microsoft-facial-recognition.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">position itself as the “moral compass”</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> of Silicon Valley. But it also came after an outcry that threatened that image. </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In June, while the country was up in arms over actions by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, several people on Twitter shared links to a </span><a href="https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/azuregov/2018/01/24/federal-agencies-continue-to-advance-capabilities-with-azure-government/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">January blog post</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> in which Microsoft general manager Tom Keane discussed a contract with ICE and noted that a Microsoft product, Azure Government, had passed a high-security threshold. The post also mentioned that this new Authority to Operate for Azure might help facilitate ICE’s work, including, potentially, using facial recognition. </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Amid the uproar,</span><a href="https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2018/07/13/facial-recognition-technology-the-need-for-public-regulation-and-corporate-responsibility/"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Smith wrote</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, Microsoft looked into it, and found that ICE was not using Azure for facial recognition or anything having to do with family separation. Acknowledging calls for the company to cut ties with ICE altogether, Smith made a different suggestion: </span><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/07/13/microsoft-president-wants-government-to-monitor-facial-recognition.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">more regulation</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“The only effective way to manage the use of technology by a government is for the government to proactively manage this use itself,” he wrote. “While we appreciate that some people today are calling for tech companies to make these decisions … we believe this is an inadequate substitute for decision making by the public and its representatives in a democratic republic.”</span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Specifically, Smith </span><a href="https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2018/07/13/facial-recognition-technology-the-need-for-public-regulation-and-corporate-responsibility/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">called on</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> the government to consider: whether law enforcement use of facial recognition, as in China, should be subject to human oversight and restrictions; whether civilians should be part of that oversight; what might prevent facial recognition from being used in racial profiling; whether retailer should have to post notices about facial recognition technology, as they do about security cameras; and several other related questions.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">As Smith was quick to point out, Microsoft isn’t the only company dealing with this issue. Salesforce and </span><a href="https://money.cnn.com/2018/07/14/technology/microsoft-facial-recognition-letter-government/index.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Amazon</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> have also been the focus of shareholder pressure and boycotts regarding relationships with ICE, and </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/13/technology/microsoft-facial-recognition.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Facebook came under fire</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> in an April lawsuit alleging that it turned on face-matching services without asking users first. But Microsoft is the first to call for a “bipartisan and expert commission” to take regulatory action.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">With a divided Congress in the midst of hearings about what Facebook does or does not owe to its users and the republic, however, Microsoft may have to wait its turn.</span></p>
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