INTUSK MAGAZINE

Microsoft Corporation announced on Tuesday that it will no longer sell technology that predicts someone's emotion based on a facial image and will no longer provide unrestricted access to facial recognition technology.

The 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 comprehensive legal limits.

Since at least last year, Microsoft has been reviewing whether emotion recognition systems are rooted in science.

Existing customers will have one year before losing access to artificial intelligence tools that purport to infer emotion, gender, age, a smile, facial hair, hair, and makeup.

Microsoft also stated that customers must now obtain permission to use its facial recognition services, which can be used to log into websites or unlock locked doors using a face scan.

The company called on clients to avoid situations that infringe on privacy or in which the technology might struggle, such as identifying minors, but did not explicitly ban those uses.

Alphabet Inc's Google Cloud conducted a similar assessment last year. Google has blocked 13 planned emotions from its tool for reading emotions and has placed four existing ones, such as joy and sorrow, under review. It was considering a new system that would describe movements like frowning and smiling without attempting to associate them with an emotion.