Microsoft details principles that guide its facial recognition work

In July, Microsoft President Brad Smith published a blog post discussing some of the challenges and risks surrounding facial recognition technology and how his company plans to address them. He said Microsoft was working on developing a set of guiding principles to direct the development of its own technology and this week, he shared what those principles are. In a new blog post, Smith described six principles that he says will govern Microsoft's work while it continues to advocate for legislation that will more concretely guide this technology as a whole. Smith said the company sought input from employees, customers, public officials, academics and other groups as it designed these principles. Going forward, the company will develop and deploy facial recognition technology in a way that aims "to treat all people fairly" and it will "document and clearly communicate the capabilities and limitations of facial recognition technology" as it does.