Process to appeal limiting use of facial recognition is too rigid

Question

Microsoft is phasing out general usage of the facial recognition API. I've been using it for a few years for an educational project to create a robot. Facial recognition is critical for the project as the robot won't talk to you unless it recognizes you.

I filled out the form requesting continued access to facial recognition.
I was rejected out of hand because I'm no longer a corporate customer and had to use a personal email address.

Ultimately, I’m not happy with the result I got from the facial recognition group. They didn’t really address the legitimacy of my request to continue using facial recognition for my educational robot project. The simply said “rule is you must have a corporate email address”. I’m retired from IBM. I no longer have a corporate email address.
In spite of the fact that I explained that there is no chance my robot will misuse facial recognition or emotion detection, they said they’re going to cut me off.
What’s the point of having an appeals process if they’re unwilling to look at the merit of the appeal?

Overall, I’m very unhappy with Microsoft’s response. It basically ends my robot project and makes me wonder about the sense of using web based APIs for AI. Seems more robust to put the AI on the raspberry pi and not have to worry about Microsoft or IBM discontinuing the service the robot depends on.

How about making this customer happy by allowing me to continue to use facial recognition?
I'm a long-time software developer and tester. If it'd be helpful, I'd be happy to provide feedback on the function to Microsoft's developers.