Meta terminates facial recognition feature on Facebook

The name change from Facebook to Meta is only a few days old when the company is already making sweeping decisions. Indeed, The Verge reports that Meta has made the decision to remove the facial recognition feature on Facebook.

The move follows a trial in February in which Facebook’s facial recognition technology was accused of violating Illinois biometric privacy law. Facebook lost that lawsuit and had to submit to a $ 650 million settlement.

This decision taken by Facebook will force it to stop using facial recognition algorithms to tag people in photos and videos, but also to remove the facial recognition models it uses for identification.

Facial recognition can only be used in very limited cases

Meta Vice President of Artificial Intelligence Jerome Pesenti wrote in a blog post that Meta still views facial recognition technology as “ a powerful tool “. Nevertheless, there is that ” the many specific cases where facial recognition can be useful must be weighed against the growing concerns about the use of this technology as a whole ».

This Meta official also pointed out the lack of full privacy regulations for facial recognition. He thus declares that ” in the midst of this continuing uncertainty, we believe it is appropriate to limit the use of facial recognition to a small set of use cases ».

What about government and private entities that use Facebook data?

Concretely, Facebook will delete all facial recognition profiles from its database. Facebook’s automated alt-text system for blind users will no longer name people when it analyzes and summarizes media. Additionally, Facebook will no longer suggest people to tag photos or automatically notify users when they appear on photos or videos posted by other users.

In addition, note that this decision by Facebook will not prevent independent companies like Clearview AI, which work with the government and the American police force, from using facial recognition algorithms formed with this data. To restrict the use of this technology by these entities, it would be essential to adopt national laws on the protection of privacy.