Microsoft employees criticize ICE contract amid recent reports

Add Microsoft to the list of companies whose government deals are provoking outrage both inside and outside their offices. The Redmond firm sparked a wave of criticism on social networks after users discovered a January blog post noting that the company's Azure cloud service team was "proud to support" US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has come under fire for policies that include separating children from parents. Microsoft briefly took down the post on June 18th in response, but the company has since described it as "a mistake" and replaced the content. In a follow-up post, Microsoft stressed that it was "dismayed" by ICE's "forcible separation" of children, and said it didn't believe technology that could directly aid in this process (such as face recognition and natural language processing) was in use at the agency. Whatever the extent of Microsoft's involvement, the connection is causing alarm among its employees.