Microsoft said on Tuesday it would stop selling technology that infers someone’s emotions based on a facial image and would no longer provide uninterrupted access to facial recognition technology.
These actions reflect efforts by leading cloud providers to rein in sensitive technologies on their own as lawmakers in the United States and Europe continue to weigh broader legal limits.
At least since last year, Microsoft Reviewing whether emotion recognition systems are rooted in science.
“These efforts raise important questions about privacy, the lack of consensus on the definition of ’emotions’, and the inability to generalize the relationship between facial expression and emotional state across use cases, regions and demographics,” said Sarah Bird, Key Group Product Manager in Microsoft’s Azure AI Unit, Told In a blog post.
Existing customers will have a year before they lose access to it artificial intelligence Tools that guess emotions, gender, age, smile, facial hair, hair and makeup.
Alphabet‘s google cloud A similar assessment was launched last year, previously reported by Reuters. Google Emotion reading blocked 13 planned emotions from their tool and put four existing emotions, such as happiness and sadness, under review. It was weighing a new system that would describe movements such as frowns and smiles, without trying to conjure up emotion.
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
Microsoft also said that customers will now have to obtain approval to use its facial recognition services, which enable people to log into websites or open closed doors via face scans.
The company called on customers to avoid situations that violate privacy or in which the technology could conflict, such as identifying minors, but did not explicitly ban those uses.