After IBM and Amazon, Microsoft announces it will stop providing facial recognition technology to US police

Microsoft said on Thursday it would wait for federal regulations before selling facial recognition technology to police, Reuters reported, adding that it was the latest major company to announce a halt to the business after Amazon and IBM.

Not long ago, Amazon announced that it would suspend police use of its "Rekognition" service for one year, and IBM said it would no longer provide, develop or research facial recognition technology.

Microsoft said in a statement that it was developing principles and legislation for the use of the technology. "We are not selling our facial recognition technology to US police now, and we will not sell this technology to police until there is a strong national law based on human rights in place."

The death of George Floyd, a black man, has sparked a wave of protests against racial injustice around the world, and there are concerns about whether facial recognition technology will be used against demonstrations.

“With even facial recognition manufacturers refusing to sell this surveillance technology because it’s too dangerous, lawmakers can no longer deny the threat it poses to our rights and liberties,” said Matt Cagle, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California.

Congress has been considering regulation for months. Facial recognition vendors that work with police include Idemia and DataWorks Plus. One of Amazon's early law enforcement customers, the Washington County Sheriff's Office in Oregon, decided to stop the project after the tech company changed its policy.

"This is a worthy innovation in law enforcement technology to explore, but pending greater oversight of the ethical aspects, our project is on hold indefinitely," the office said in an internal memo Thursday.

Microsoft and Amazon did not respond to requests for comment on whether their bans apply broadly to law enforcement, such as Microsoft’s previous statement that it would provide software to an unnamed prison. Microsoft said it is updating its evaluation of customers who want to use the technology broadly.

Mike Jude, director of research firm IDC, said decisions by big companies will win goodwill without sacrificing too much business at a time of regulatory scrutiny in the United States and Europe.

“Is facial recognition important to any company right now?”

"Not really," he said.