Tech workers pledge to never build a database of Muslims

When asked in 2015 on the campaign trail whether he thought the United States should create a database of Muslims in the country, Donald Trump said, “Oh, I would certainly implement that — absolutely." On Dec 13, hundreds of members of the technology industry weighed in on whether they would help build such a database. The answer? Absolutely not. By Dec 14 some 590 software engineers, designers, business executives and data processing personnel from US firms such as Google, Twitter, Microsoft, Mozilla and Palantir Technologies had signed a pledge “choosing to stand in solidarity with Muslim Americans, immigrants, and all people whose lives and livelihoods are threatened by the incoming administration’s proposed data collection policies."

As part of the pledge, the individuals promised, among other things, to:

• Refuse to participate in the creation of databases that would allow the government to target individuals based on race, religion or national origin
• Advocate within their organizations to minimize data collection that would facilitate ethnic or religious targeting
• Responsibly destroy high-risk data sets and backups
• Resign from their organization if ordered to build such a database