Microsoft's Azure OpenAI bans police using the AI on mobile cameras, including bodycams or dashcams, to identify someone in public in realtime. Photo: Unsplash / Taton Moïse
Microsoft has banned US police departments from using generative artificial intelligence (AI) for facial recognition on a key cloud computing service.
This comes shortly after big taser maker Axon launched a new tool using AI to transcribe audio from police bodycams.
Media reports in the US say the new ban covering Microsoft's Azure OpenAI service does not apply to police in other countries.
But it does ban police globally from using the AI on mobile cameras, including bodycams or dashcams, to identify someone in public in realtime.
New Zealand Police are still debating the use of bodyworn cameras (BWC) and have begun rolling out $30 million of new tasers without any cameras.
Axon leverages its taser sales to also supply both bodyworn cams and the data handling systems to store the footage from them.
The police annual review shows its tactical operations manager at headquarters went to Australia a year ago for an Axon "public safety tech" conference, to "better understand their Taser/BWC programmes".
An Axon news release said its new product, Draft One, saved an hour's paperwork per day per US officer, with "a revolutionary new software product that drafts high-quality police report narratives in seconds based on auto-transcribed body-worn camera audio" using generative AI.
It would lift a big "burdensome" load of daily report-writing off understaffed forces, the multi-billion-dollar company said.
Its research showed the technology was not biased, Axon said.
Microsoft put the OpenAI service into its leading cloud products for the government three months ago.
New Zealand public agencies regularly use Microsoft's cloud services.