Chinese tech giant Alibaba has sought to distance itself from a face-recognition software feature devised by its cloud computing unit that could help users to identify members of the country's Muslim Uighur minority.
A report this week revealing the software feature made Alibaba, one of the world's most valuable companies, the latest Chinese corporate entity embroiled in the controversy over China's treatment of Uighurs.
In a statement posted online late Thursday, Alibaba said it was "dismayed to learn" that Alibaba Cloud developed the feature.
The technology was used only in for capability-testing and not deployed by any customer, Alibaba said, adding that it had "eliminated any ethnic tag" in its products.
"We do not and will not permit our technology to be used to target or identify specific ethnic groups," it said.
The Uighur issue looms as a worrying threat for Chinese companies as global criticism grows over Beijing's policies in the northwest region of Xinjiang.
Rights groups say as many as one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities have been held in internment camps there.
Beijing initially denied the camps' existence but now calls them vocational training centers.
Surveillance spending in Xinjiang has risen sharply in recent years, with facial recognition and other technologies deployed across the province.
Washington last year blacklisted eight Chinese tech firms for alleged links to the surveillance effort.
Last week, US-based surveillance research firm IPVM said Chinese telecoms company Huawei had been involved in testing facial-recognition software that could send alerts to police when Uighur faces were recognized.
Huawei denied the claim.
