Microsoft Limits Facial Recognition Technology Use, Sales

Microsoft won’t be selling facial recognition technology in an “unfettered” way anymore, Reuters reported Tuesday (June 21), and will be ending the sale of technology that guesses emotions based on a facial image.

With the change, existing customers will have a year before they lose access to the artificial intelligence (AI) tools that Microsoft claims can infer things like emotion, gender, age, smile, facial hair, hair and makeup. These types of services can be used to allow access to websites or open locked doors, the report noted.

This change comes as leading cloud providers have been trying to rein in the sensitive tech on their own, as concerns abound about the ways facial recognition might be misused or make mistakes. Microsoft has also reportedly been looking into whether the systems are based on facts.

“These efforts raised important questions about privacy, the lack of consensus on a definition of ‘emotions,’ and the inability to generalize the linkage between facial expression and emotional state across use cases, regions, and demographics,” Sarah Bird, principal group product manager at Microsoft’s Azure AI unit, said in a company blog post.

Microsoft has said customers will have to get approval to use its facial recognition services, although existing users will have access to the tools for one year.

Google has been evaluating similar measures since last year, with the company having blocked 13 planned emotions from being read. There were also four existing emotions, including joy and sorrow, put under review.

Instead, Google was considering a new system which would describe facial expressions, including frowning and smiling, without having to attach them to emotions.

PYMNTS wrote recently that as companies have continued rolling out new biometric services, some consumers are still worried about fraud.

Read more: Consumers Warming to Biometrics, Still Worry About Fraud

The report noted how government programs have tried to guard consumer data, including through laws that add more work for executives, such as compliance challenges and more vetting.

Consumers have said they want technology that provides both convenience and speed to access financial accounts, and many of them seem okay with trusting the biometrics. A recent survey indicated an increase in the comfort level and appetite for such things, particularly because of the pandemic-driven digital shift.