Microsoft Clashes With Monastic Order Over Facial Recognition

Microsoft Clashes With Monastic Order Over Facial Recognition

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The sale of Microsoft’s facial recognition to police forces and government organizations is met with opposition from company shareholders: a monastic order is challenging the plans.

 

At Microsoft’s significant shareholders’ meeting on November 30, two proposals will be on the table regarding facial recognition. One asks that Microsoft ensure that its lobbyist’s respect the company values of racial equality and human rights; the second asks that Microsoft stop selling facial recognition technology to governments.

A monastic order leads the group of investors that submitted the proposals. The Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace is a Catholic order whose field of action lies not so much with eggs or education but with organizing activist shareholders. They seem to focus mainly on human rights and discrimination caused by technology.

“As shareholders, tech workers or activists for justice, we need to remind these companies of their responsibilities,” Sister Susan Francois said in a campaign video. ‘Innovation should not increase discrimination and division, but should support human dignity and a fair society.’

The sisters’ current field of action is, therefore, currently with Microsoft. That’s striking because Microsoft is, at least publicly, one of the tech companies that are calling for more regulation and more ethical use of AI and facial recognition software. In addition, the company has previously been criticized for selling facial recognition technology, which may not work as well on dark-skinned people and harm them in that way, to law enforcement.

Microsoft promised that it would no longer do that. However, the sisters point out that the company still cooperates with the US Immigration Service and other governments, including authoritarian regimes.

And despite public demand for facial recognition regulation, Microsoft would try to influence that legislation to its advantage, according to the group of shareholders. “No matter what it says publicly,” Sister Susan says, “Microsoft spends $9.5 million a year fighting a law that would ban discriminatory facial recognition. The company is lobbying US states to pass laws that would increase the use of dangerous surveillance technology by police.”

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