US Congress bans staff use of Microsoft’s AI Copilot, Axios reports

(Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives has imposed a strict prohibition on congressional staffers’ utilization of Microsoft’s Copilot generative AI assistant, as reported by Axios on Friday.

According to the Axios report, Catherine Szpindor, the House’s Chief Administrative Officer, stated, “The Microsoft Copilot application has been flagged by the Office of Cybersecurity as posing a risk to users due to the potential leakage of House data to cloud services not approved by the House.”

In response to these concerns, a Microsoft spokesperson informed Reuters, “We acknowledge that government users have heightened security requirements for data. That’s why we have announced a roadmap of Microsoft AI tools, such as Copilot, that are designed to meet federal government security and compliance standards, which we plan to deliver later this year.”
At the time of reporting, the U.S. House’s chief administrative office had not responded to a request from Reuters for comment.

Policymakers have been examining potential risks associated with the adoption of artificial intelligence by federal agencies and assessing the adequacy of measures to safeguard individual privacy and ensure equitable treatment.

Last year, legislation was introduced by two Democratic and two Republican U.S. senators to prohibit the use of artificial intelligence that generates content falsely depicting candidates in political advertisements aimed at influencing federal elections.