Microsoft is facing new pressure from investors over its development and sale of surveillance technologies to law enforcement and its efforts to shape the policies regulating their deployment.

Three separate shareholder proposals filed this week reviewed by The Hill are demanding Microsoft evaluate whether its business model aligns with the tech giant’s stated commitments to racial justice and human rights.

The first, filed by the social-issues-focused firm Harrington Investments, calls on Microsoft leadership to “generally prohibit” the sale of facial recognition technology to all government entities and disclose any exceptions made to that rule...

The second shareholder proposal was filed by the sisters of the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary and calls for a holistic report on how effectively Microsoft implements its own human rights commitments. The proposal highlights contracts with the New York Police Department (NYPD), ICE and the military that it says may conflict with those stated ideals...

The final proposal, led by the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, asks Microsoft to commission a report on how its lobbying aligns with its stated principles...

A spokesperson for the tech giant declined to comment on the proposals, but pointed The Hill to a video of Microsoft President Brad Smith explaining the decision to suspend facial recognition sales to police.

... Mary Beth Gallagher, the executive director at Investor Advocates for Social Justice who helped the two religious organizations file their proposals, said that the strategy is moving companies in the right direction.

“Investors and other stakeholders don't want companies making empty promises, statements [and] commitments,” she told The Hill. “These proposals and all the work civil society actors are doing I think are pushing toward more corporate accountability.”