Microsoft will not sell facial recognition technology to U.S. police departments until there is a national law to regulate this technology. On Thursday, Microsoft president Brad Smith said on Washington Post Live the company will cease the selling of this technology until a law "grounded in human rights" is put in place. "This is a moment in time that really calls on us to listen more to learn more and, most importantly, to do more," Smith said. The move follows Amazon's Wednesday announcement to suspend police use of its facial recognition technology, Rekognition, for one year after several studies found bias in the software that disproportionately targets people of color. Similarly, in a letter to Congress, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna also said the company would not sell facial recognition services to most customers.

The regulation of facial recognition is emerging as a key disagreement among the world's biggest tech companies, with Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai suggesting a temporary ban, as recently suggested by the EU, might be welcome, while Microsoft's chief legal officer Brad Smith cautions against such intervention. "I think it is important that governments and regulations tackle it sooner rather than later and give a framework for it," Pichai said at a conference in Brussels on Monday, reports Reuters. "It can be immediate but maybe there's a waiting period before we really think about how it's being used ... It's up to governments to chart the course." But in an interview published last week, Smith, who also serves as Microsoft's chief legal officer, was dismissive of the idea of a moratorium. "Look, you can try to solve a problem with a meat cleaver or a scalpel," Smith told NPR when questioned about a potential ban.