Tech workers vow not to build Trump Muslim registry

More than 300 employees of tech companies including Google and Twitter have signed a pledge not to help Donald Trump`s administration build a Muslim registry.

“We are 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,” reads an open letter posted at neveragain.tech. “We refuse to build a database of people based on their Constitutionally-protected religious beliefs. We refuse to facilitate mass deportations of people the government believes to be undesirable.”

The letter draws comparison to the Holocaust and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

Silicon Valley tech companies have remained silent on the issue, with only Twitter saying it would not aid the administration in building a registry.

The letter also vows to minimize the collection or retention of data that could be used in targeting people based on their religious beliefs and to oppose any misuse of data at their companies.

Ka-Ping Yee, a software engineer at Wave, and Leigh Honeywell, a security engineering manager at Slack, helped organize the pledge.

“What’s important to me is that individuals who care about the ethical use of technology can step forward, show how many of us there are, and say that there are lines we will not cross,” Yee told BuzzFeed News.

The protest comes one day before U.S. technology leaders including Apple`s Tim Cook and Alphabet`s Larry Page meet with the president-elect at Trump Tower in New York City.

The employees say they are a mix of engineers, designers and business executives hailing from a smattering of tech companies, even Palantir Technologies, co-founded by Peter Thiel, the billionaire tech investor who is advising the Trump transition team.

Source: US Today