{"id":3798,"date":"2021-11-22T06:52:10","date_gmt":"2021-11-22T06:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/2021\/11\/22\/microsoft-shareholder-resolutions-2021\/"},"modified":"2021-11-22T06:52:10","modified_gmt":"2021-11-22T06:52:10","slug":"microsoft-shareholder-resolutions-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/2021\/11\/22\/microsoft-shareholder-resolutions-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft Shareholder Resolutions &#8211; Facial Recognition, Pay Equity, Sexual Harassment,  and more"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"kg-card kg-embed-card\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"200\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/jedii.tech\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Screen-Shot-2021-11-22-at-5.28.13-PM-3.png 900w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 720px) 720px\"><\/figure>\n<p>Microsoft goes farthest in opposing the facial recognition resolution, which it bluntly says &#8220;does not advance the interests of Microsoft, its shareholders, or other stakeholders.&#8221; \u00a0 Why? \u00a0Well for one thing they&#8217;ve made public &#8220;commitments&#8221;, and they&#8217;ve done a lot of positive things! \u00a0Also:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>This proposal would impose a blunt prohibition that would deny public agencies the ability to deploy facial recognition technology in societally beneficial use cases.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Hey wait a second, that&#8217;s not what the resolution says! \u00a0It explictly allows exceptions, it just asks the Board to disclose them. \u00a0Luke Stark&#8217;s helpful analogy that facial recognition is like plutonium, incredibly toxic but with a few beneficial usages, is a good lens to look at this through. There may be exceptions, but tost of the time, spraying plutonium should be prohibited. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Of course some of the exceptions may be lucrative, and the Board wants Microsoft to be able to make money helping governments spray people with plutonium in &#8220;societally beneficial use cases.&#8221; \u00a0The resolution allows that; they just have to disclose what they&#8217;re doing. \u00a0Given how toxic facial recognition is, and how strong the evidence is that it&#8217;s harmful, that seems pretty reasonable to me! \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In the &#8220;societally beneficial use cases&#8221; where Microsoft&#8217;s helping governments spray plutonium, the company should indeed disclose that they&#8217;re doing it. \u00a0The human rights resolution They should also be ready to describe the &#8220;risk profiles,&#8221; how the safeguards are &#8220;calibrated,&#8221; and why it&#8217;s in the interests of all the &#8220;stakeholders&#8221; \u2013 including the ones who are being sprayed with plutonium.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"stay-tuned-for-more\">Stay tuned for more<\/h2>\n<p>All of these resolutions are part of longer-term battles. \u00a0In Arjuna Capital&#8217;s statement for resolution #2 (sexual harassment), they talk about the 2012 class action lawsuit from almost 300 women employees. \u00a0 #1, pay equity, has a history as well: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.computerworld.com\/article\/2590352\/update--six-plaintiffs-join--5-billion-discrimination-suit-against-microso.html\">Microsoft was sued by Black employees in a class action in the early 2000s<\/a>, narrowly avoided a class action suit by women employees on gender inequity, and just last year <a href=\"https:\/\/news.bloomberglaw.com\/daily-labor-report\/microsoft-reaches-3-million-hiring-bias-settlement-with-dol\">settled with the Department of Labor over allegations of racial discrimination<\/a>. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, the facial recognition resolution is only the latest skirmish in the interlocking multi-year fights over facial recognition and privacy. \u00a0Resolution #5 (lobbying) has some of the backstory:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In 2020, Microsoft committed not to sell facial recognition to police \u201cuntil there is a strong national law grounded in human rights,\u201d<sup>7<\/sup> and it has urged governments to consider \u201ccivilian oversight and accountability\u201d of facial recognition.<sup>8<\/sup> However, Microsoft lobbies for and testified in support of laws that enable police use of facial recognition and undermine such local accountability efforts.<sup>9<\/sup> Last year, a Microsoft employee \u2013 who is also a Washington State Senator \u2013 prime sponsored<sup>10<\/sup> a weak, industry-backed state facial recognition bill, which was strongly opposed by a large coalition of privacy advocates, racial justice advocates, and consumer rights organizations.<sup>11<\/sup> Contradicting Microsoft\u2019s claim that the Washington bill \u201coffers protections for civil liberties,\u201d<sup>12<\/sup> privacy expert Jennifer Lee said Microsoft\u2019s bill \u201cpurports to put safeguards&#8230;but does just the opposite.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I was part of that large coalition opposing the 2020 facial recognition bill, and <a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/a-change-is-coming\/a-bad-day-for-a-bad-privacy-bill-a-good-day-for-privacy-a2aeea8e8739\">the bad privacy bill that Microsoft also supported<\/a> but failed to pass. \u00a0In 2021, the Microsoft employee \/ State Senator opposed even holding a hearing on a facial recognition moratorium bill, and also once again co-sponsored the Bad Washington Privacy Act (which once again Microsoft supported and once again did not pass). Microsoft\u2019s put a lot of energy into&#8221;direct and indirect lobbying activities&#8221; as part of these battles, in Washington and across the country. \u00a0As we get ready for the 2022 legislative session, and it&#8217;s a very good question how well these activities align with the company&#8217;s stated principles and policy commitments. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So even though Microsoft&#8217;s Board will almost certainly fend off the resolutions at this year&#8217;s meeting, the issue isn&#8217;t going away. \u00a0Once the legislative session ends, activist investors will start planning for next year&#8217;s shareholder meeting; and if the legislature doesn&#8217;t act, there&#8217;s starting to be talk about a potential statewide initiative banning facial recognition. \u00a0Stay tuned for more!<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"links\">Links<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/policy\/technology\/558890-exclusive-scrutiny-mounts-on-microsofts-surveillance-technology\">Scrutiny mounts on Microsoft\u2019s surveillance technology<\/a> in <em>The Hill <\/em>and \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.windowscentral.com\/investors-call-reports-microsoft-see-if-actions-line-words-surveillance\">Investors pressure Microsoft over surveillance tech policies<\/a> \u00a0in <em>Windows Central<\/em> \u00a0have more on #3, #5, and the human rights review resolution. \u00a0 <\/li>\n<li>Dina Bass&#8217; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2021-10-13\/microsoft-agrees-to-investor-push-for-human-rights-review-of-government-deals\">Microsoft Agrees to Human Rights Review in Deals With Law Enforcement, Government<\/a> on <em>Bloomberg Tech <\/em>discusses the human rights resolution<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/a-change-is-coming\/a-bad-day-for-a-bad-privacy-bill-a-good-day-for-privacy-a2aeea8e8739\">A bad day for a bad privacy bill, a good day for privacy<\/a> has highlights from Stan Shikuma&#8217;s and Jennifer Lee&#8217;s testimony in 2020. \u00a0You can see the full video <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tvw.org\/watch\/?eventID=2020021280\">here<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Arjuna Capital&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesswire.com\/news\/home\/20210616005826\/en\/Arjuna-Capital-Shareholder-Resolution-Microsoft-Needs-Independent-and-Transparent-Investigation-of-Gender-Discrimination-Sexual-Harassment\">Microsoft Needs Independent and Transparent Investigation of Gender Discrimination, Sexual Harassment<\/a> has more about the background on #1 and #2<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/entertainment\/meet-woman-convinced-apple-starbucks-110054201.html\">Meet the Woman Who Convinced Apple, Starbucks, and Nike to Close Their Gender Pay Gaps<\/a> has backstory about Arjuna&#8217;s Natasha Lamb. \u00a0<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/grist.org\/accountability\/bowing-to-investors-microsoft-will-make-its-devices-easier-to-fix\/\">Bowing to investors, Microsoft will make its devices easier to fix<\/a> describes another successful resolution, from right-to-repair activists.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Microsoft goes farthest in opposing the facial recognition resolution, which it bluntly says &#8220;does not advance the interests of Microsoft, its shareholders, or other stakeholders.&#8221; \u00a0 Why? \u00a0Well for one thing they&#8217;ve made public &#8220;commitments&#8221;, and they&#8217;ve done a lot of positive things! \u00a0Also: This proposal would impose a blunt prohibition that would deny public [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3798\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}