Facial-recognition technology has become deeply integrated in tech giants' products, whether the key feature for unlocking Apple's iPhone X or identifying people in Google's photos app. In his latest missive, Mr. Smith tackles the potential "sobering" uses for facial-recognition technology, such as creating a database of everyone who attended a political rally or governmental tracking of residents as they move about without their permission or knowledge. "The only effective way to manage the use of technology by a government is for the government proactively to manage this use itself," Mr. Smith wrote in a blog post scheduled for Friday. But he also challenged the notion companies could regulate themselves alone. Change won't occur, he said, if a few companies adopt new standards while rivals ignore them.

SEATTLE – Microsoft, which has come under fire for a U.S. government contract that was said to involve facial recognition software, said it will more carefully consider contracts in this area and urged lawmakers to regulate the use of such artificial intelligence to prevent abuse. The company, one of the key makers of software capable of recognizing individual faces, said it will take steps to make those systems less prone to bias, develop new public principles to govern the technology and move more deliberately to sell its software and expertise in the area. While Microsoft noted that the tech industry bears responsibility for its products, the company argued that government action is also needed. "The only effective way to manage the use of technology by a government is for the government proactively to manage this use itself," Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith said Friday in a blog post. "And if there are concerns about how a technology will be deployed more broadly across society, the only way to regulate this broad use is for the government to do so. This, in fact, is what we believe is needed today -- a government initiative to regulate the proper use of facial recognition technology, informed first by a bipartisan and expert commission."