
Microsoft pitched facial recognition to the DEA - tech-historian
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/microsoft-pitched-facial-recognition-dea-drug-enforcement
======
gentleman11
Speaking of racial and class injustice, the war in drugs has incentivized a
lot of crime over the years while also brutally punishing poor people who turn
to it out of desperation. To propose adding another layer of facial
recognition that both attempts to strip privacy from people, but also falsely
identifies many black people, is in extremely bad taste by Microsoft

~~~
the-dude
War in drugs. Love the typo.

From the other side of the pond, the US fixation on wars is ... remarkable.
Marking these policies as wars wouldn't fly in the EU.

Circling back, the use of 'war' for civil matters normalizes the word, making
real war easier to swallow.

~~~
vianneychevalie
Macron declared that France was in a state of war during a presidential speech
at the start of the Covid-19 crisis

EU also has its share of word over utilization

~~~
est31
Germany's president said in his speech on April 11:

> No, this pandemic is not a war. It does not pit nations against nations, or
> soldiers against soldiers. Rather, it is a test of our humanity. It brings
> out the worst and the best in people. Let us show each other our best side!

[https://www.bundespraesident.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/Rede...](https://www.bundespraesident.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/Reden/2020/04/200411-TV-
Ansprache-Corona-Englisch.pdf?__blob=publicationFile)

~~~
ciarannolan
I wish my country had a leader that could speak in full sentences like this.

~~~
Aloha
I just wish mine had one who could speak in full sentences

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mikece
Back in 2012 I was chatting with a co-worker whose side hustle was
owning/running convenience store gas stations (he had two and was looking to
expand). He was talking about the issues he was facing with shoplifters and I
mentioned that Facebook had, in the previous 12 months, acquired the #2
company in facial recognition -- then did it again when the #3 company moved
up to #2. I asked him if paying $200/month per store for a digital
surveillance system that not only captured video but ran biometric matches
against Facebook's database of images would be of interest to him. "Hell yes!"
was the answer without any hesitation (I think he would have gladly paid more
because insurance rates would possibly go down -- I forget the rest of the
conversation).

The point being: whether it's Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, or Yahoo, these
services aren't developed just because it's cool but in order to generate
revenue at some point. Why is there so much shock and surprise that Microsoft
tried to sell a digital security/surveillance/law enforcement tool to the DEA?
To me the major story would be if someone internally suggested it and it was
nixed on principle.

~~~
koheripbal
I think people underestimate the degree to which most companies cooperate with
the law enforcement.

When I was a teenager working for my Dad's small insurance agency,
investigators would come in about once per year and ask for files on customer
xyz. When I was old enough, I asked my dad if they needed a warrant. His
answer was "Yes, but why the hell would I want to fight that battle?".

In my 30s, I worked for a major financial bank running tech for their US
compliance/legal/regulatory departments. The _mountains_ of data that we give
local, state, and federal authorities on a daily basis is enormous. I mean you
wouldn't believe how much data we handed over - or made available during an
inspection. There was a documented official process for both the ad-hoc
requests or the regular dumps, but we absolutely never fought with them about
what we provided.

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1v1id
This wasn't just Microsoft.
[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/22/technology/amazon-
facial-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/22/technology/amazon-facial-
recognition.html)

Not saying it wasn't wrong pitch to DEA, but it seems strange that it's
Microsoft being called out when, concretely, they were probably the earliest
adopters of not selling due to human rights concerns
[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-ai-
idUSKCN1RS2F...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-ai-
idUSKCN1RS2FV) [https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-
issues/2018/12/06/facial-...](https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-
issues/2018/12/06/facial-recognition-its-time-for-action/)

~~~
marcosdumay
People are yelling about Microsoft hypocrisy after they made noise on their
feel-good achieve-nothing move at Github.

In my opinion, people have been complaining about the change too much, and the
hypocrisy too little. The PR was probably positive, when it shouldn't be.

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bgorman
This is about as evil as it gets for a software company. Using your technology
to put people behind bars for victimless crimes

Microsoft products are generally such low quality that I avoid them anyway,
but I'm going to try to disable all my Microsoft cloud accounts after this
revelation.

~~~
Mirioron
It's easy to lay the blame on corporations, but where do the voters come into
this? They are the ones that get politicians into office. Politicians are the
ones with the power to stop the war on drugs, yet they haven't. Should we say
that people who vote for politicians that don't get rid of the war on drugs
are using their vote to put innocent people in prison?

It just seems odd to me that the two groups of people that could put an end to
the whole thing (voters and politicians) seem to be blame-free.

~~~
staplers
“Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth.”

-Lucy Parsons (1878-1937)

~~~
squarefoot
How true, but good luck telling that to those who keep voting billionaries.

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pluc
I'm genuinely curious why some of you think they wouldn't try? They're a
company with a product to sell to few industries, even fewer where it can be
leveraged as completely as in law enforcement.. so why wouldn't they?

~~~
Aqua
Indeed, some comments here are ridiculous. They are a company, they want to
earn Money. Contrary to what people might think, just because a company tweets
they support the BLM movement, that doesn't immediately mean(in fact, it
almost never means) that they're genuinely interested in being benevolent.
Stop being naive.

~~~
blantonl
I guarantee you MS has enormous software and support contracts in place doing
all kinds of work for the federal government with regards to surveillance.
There is just too much funding out there to ignore that space.

I can't think of any enterprise IT firm that could be take seriously by
shareholders if they planted some stake in the ground that they were going to
NOT go after that business. There is no way.

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spaetzleesser
Are there any useful applications for face recognition that don't have massive
potential for abuse? I have thought about this for a while and it seems all
cloud based face recognition can (and probably will) be abused. I think we are
building a scary future. Just wait until microphone technology is good enough
to listen to every public conversation.

~~~
bluedino
What about something like: extremely dangerous, wanted criminal is on the
loose. He's known to be a in a large city, and you use facial recognition to
find/track him before he can commit a bombing or something like that.

~~~
ninjaturtlez
He said that "didn't have potential for abuse", I think the situation you gave
defines abuse. Tracking everyone to catch one person is not acceptable in my
opinion.

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oarabbus_
End the War on Drugs. Invest in harm reduction and rehabilitation centers.
Decriminalize individual possession of small quantities of (most) drugs.
Unrestrict researchers from performing research on psychedelic compounds.

~~~
3131s
> _Decriminalize individual possession of small quantities of (most) drugs._

But then you haven't ended the war on drugs. We need legalization, not
decriminalization.

~~~
oarabbus_
Eh, maybe in the long-run. We need decriminalization for personal use in the
short term (the next 20 years).

~~~
3131s
We don't have twenty years.

It's inhuman and stupid to put people in prison for selling drugs. In the
meantime the US is going to crumble under policies like this, while gangs will
become increasingly powerful.

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kolbe
The cynic in me says that Microsoft/Amazon/Google will not be selling to
police agencies, but instead to wholesalers who then sell the services to
them.

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danielovichdk
Microsoft is not controlled by a force that leaves sales personal with no
responsibility to take action.

Of course someone is trying to sell this, they are hired to sell it

~~~
flattone
I think that’s obvious. That value/point of this article for a concerned
citizen might be not ‘why are sales people doing this?’ But instead ask
‘should this be happening, will it damage civilian life, us economy/future,
bleed into the rest of the world in a damaging way.?’

~~~
danielovichdk
Yes it's obvious. No one should think that any very large company is
controlled by one person.

So even though it might seem as a bad move, it's more likely a sales person
'down in EPG that had a good idea, and pitced it'.

I would encourage free action towards making an impact at any given time

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spideymans
I feel like everyone should read up on the War on Drugs, and how people of
colour (Blacks and Latinos in particular) are over policed and receive far
stiffer sentences (we’re talking on the order of decades here) than their
white counterparts. Call it social grandstanding, but it’s unconscionable that
I’d willingly assist in the development of such technologies if I knew it
would be used by the DEA and law enforcement. I’d rather be unemployed

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WrtCdEvrydy
Company wanting to make money attempts to sell product!

~~~
c22
People with lots of ways to make money pursue morally questionable market in
ongoing futile attempt to collect all of the money.

~~~
decebalus1
Not a fan of the DEA or any TLA for that matter. However, I believe we need to
do this right and police everything which is morally questionable. Including
but not limited to health insurers, student loan companies, high frequency
trading and wage slavers (which is most retailers).

I think people have their heart in the right place. But the hate shouldn't be
directed at MSFT in my opinion but on the legislators and ultimately at the
DEA. Boycotting Microsoft for trying to get a government contract will not
solve shit. Ultimately, the government can (and does) seed private companies
to do their shady tech shit if Microsoft or some tech giant refuses to provide
it.

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jimbob45
Maybe I’m not very creative but I don’t really see the use cases for this.

I skimmed the article thinking it would have some and I didn’t see one.

~~~
heavyset_go
Use cases that are pretty valuable:

\- Black box that will confirm authority's bias about who is guilty, and who
isn't.

\- Black box to absolve authority of accusations of bias by offloading the
bias to another biased party.

\- Black box to absolve authority of responsibility, because they were just
following the black box's orders.

\- Dragnet identification of people in order to investigate, charge, serve
warrants or make arrests.

The latter is their most likely stated reason, there are several reports of
law enforcement going through footage and pictures to identify people with
outstanding warrants and to issue others with new charges. There is also a
strong desire to identify everyone a suspect interacts with, because they must
be guilty by association.

Law enforcement is very paranoid, in general, and like most of the general
public, think what they see computers do on CSI is real.

~~~
flattone
What are people seeing on CSI that is or isn’t real?

I know of the show but have not seen. And I doubt CSI is presenting tech which
is as advanced as reality. I have seen black mirror, and reality isn’t too far
from that. (Referring to the direction/trajectory of our development of ML,
sensors etc)

~~~
heavyset_go
Like with a lot of entertainment, there is no distinction between actual
engineering or police work, and magic.

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gundmc
This stands in stark contrast to IBM who announced halting facial recognition
offerings, Google who has prohibited use of facial recognition against non-
public figures from the start, and Amazon who just announced a moratorium on
facial recognition use by law enforcement. Not a good look for MSFT.

~~~
Aloha
"Newly released emails show the company has tried to sell the controversial
technology to the government for years, including to the Drug Enforcement
Administration in late 2017."

I dont think Microsoft is selling it now, even though they might have been in
2017

~~~
darzu
Microsoft should put out a statement clarifying this then.

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megaman821
I am not fan of the DEA, but this trend of generating bad PR for tech
providers of governmental agencies ridiculous. Attack the agency or vote in
politicians to change or dismantle them. As of 2020 Millennials are the
largest adult generation. They have more voting power than the Boomers, if
they actually get out and vote.

~~~
B4CKlash
Voting with your wallet is an extremely powerful and simplistic tool.
Generating bad PR enforces the former and informs the latter (actual voting)

You make the process of handcuffing the DEA in any capacity sound easy.... but
lets walk through some high level steps:

You would need to formulate enough PR to generate a movement, that PR would
probably need to span political parties, those political parties (because we
only have two) would need to work well between themselves to systematically
allow for such an approval to pass. Ignoring the fact that most voters are no
single-issue voters AND ignoring the fact that gerrymandering has
removed/hamstrung entire voting demographics.

It's a mind-numbing exercise to think of generating enough support in today's
environment to effect serious change though voting.

~~~
mulmen
The inability to make “serious” change quickly or at a national level is a
feature.

What seems to be missed is how much easier this is at a local level. I’d like
to see a lot more advocacy for restrictions on local police departments.

I’d happily support a local law that prohibits police use of facial
recognition technology.

~~~
B4CKlash
I guess i'm not sure what you're advocating. Why are we shielding companies
from consumer sentiment?

~~~
megaman821
I don't really care about the companies here, just on what is effective. Would
you rather have a handful of companies put a moratorium on selling to facial
recognition tech to governments or state and local ordinances banning their
use no matter what company the tech is from?

~~~
pessimizer
I didn't know they were offering a choice.

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romualdr
Do NOT misunderstand this. Recognition != Identification. Microsoft just
pushed how to detect faces, they don't know who they are.

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MintelIE
I mean this is good, right? There are a LOT of illegal aliens involved in the
drug trade. These people aren't known for their propensity to have correct ID.
The only practical way to ID them is with facial recognition, DNA, and
fingerprints.

~~~
caseyohara
Or, you know, just end the War on Drugs altogether? The war is lost and
continuing to fight it is a net negative for society.

~~~
MintelIE
No thanks! Currently China is using drugs to destabilize and damage the USA.
Fentanyl is a weapon.

~~~
pstuart
> Fentanyl is a weapon

No, it's a drug that has legitimate use cases. It's only being put out there
"recreationally" because the illegal drug market is unregulated and "safer"
drugs are not accessible.

The War on Drugs was _never_ about protecting people from self-harm. If you
think otherwise, you're imposing some sort of moralistic revisionism.

To promote ending this disaster is not the same as promoting drug use. It's
about reducing the crime that it creates and make the world safer for
everyone.

~~~
MintelIE
I have to go ahead and disagree with you there on this point. The War On Drugs
is intended to hurt violent street gangs, often foreign-based.

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Shared404
Have a source for that?

~~~
pstuart
That person is either a troll or an idiot; don't waste your time.

