Sometimes you have to do things to win back the public’s trust.
Facebook announced through its parent company Meta on Tuesday that the company
is shutting down its Face Recognition system and will delete the facial data of more than 1 billion of its users.
People who opted in to Face Recognition will no longer be automatically recognized in photos and videos, and their facial recognition templates will be deleted.
Per Facebook VP of Artificial Intelligence Jerome Pesenti, Facebook is making this change because it needs to weigh the positive use cases for facial recognition against growing societal concerns” as regulators “have yet to provide clear rules.”
The facial recognition feature has been available since 2011, and when it debuted, the feature was turned on automatically for more than 500 million people. The option, known as “Tag Recognition” at the time, was designed to recognize Facebook users in photos and videos posted by other users, tagging all of the people in the photo.
Following immediate privacy concerns that came with the launch of the feature, Facebook in December 2017 introduced an expanded Face Recognition feature and with it, an opt-out option.
The company has stated that more than a third of Facebook’s daily active users have facial recognition enabled, and that the change required “careful consideration.” It also stated that an Automatic Alt Text feature for blind users that automatically provided the names of people in photos.
Facebook also stated that it will continue to work on its facial recognition technologies, and offered the following comments:
Looking ahead, we still see facial recognition technology as a powerful tool, for example, for people needing to verify their identity, or to prevent fraud and impersonation. We believe facial recognition can help for products like these with privacy, transparency and control in place, so you decide if and how your face is used. We will continue working on these technologies and engaging outside experts.
But the many specific instances where facial recognition can be helpful need to be weighed against growing concerns about the use of this technology as a whole. There are many concerns about the place of facial recognition technology in society, and regulators are still in the process of providing a clear set of rules governing its use. Amid this ongoing uncertainty, we believe that limiting the use of facial recognition to a narrow set of use cases is appropriate.
Via MacRumors and about.fb.com