Microsoft Corp... has hired former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate whether the use of facial recognition technology developed by an Israeli startup it funded complies with its ethics principles... Microsoft announced facial recognition ethics principles last year, saying the company would “advocate for safeguards for people’s democratic freedoms in law enforcement surveillance scenarios and will not deploy facial recognition technology in scenarios that we believe will put these freedoms at risk.”... NBC had reported that AnyVision’s technology was used within the West Bank and at Israeli border crossings. The company told NBC its software was not used for West Bank surveillance and was deployed at border crossings in a manner similar to U.S. Customs’ use of biometric identification at airports... AnyVision in an August blog post also said that it would announce an ethics advisory board and that it had a responsibility to prevent its technology’s abuse.