Facebook to shut down facial recognition in photos, videos

The social media platform is to delete data related to the faces of more than one billion people.

People who have opted into Facebook’s photo-sharing service will no longer be automatically recognised in video and photo content. Picture: AFP

Facebook says it is shutting down its facial-recognition system in the coming weeks – scrapping a feature that has developed into a central element of photo-sharing online, but raised concerns among privacy advocates and regulators.

People who have opted into the service will no longer be automatically recognised in video and photo content, according to Jerome Pesenti, vice-president of ­artificial intelligence at Meta Platforms, formerly Facebook.

He said the social-media platform would also delete individual facial-recognition templates for more than one billion people.

“We need to weigh the positive use cases for facial recognition against growing societal concerns, especially as regulators have yet to provide clear rules,” he said in a post on Meta’s website on Tuesday night.

The change marks a major shift for the company, which has long touted the convenience ­facial recognition delivers for users and pushed back against privacy advocates who find the technology ­invasive. It also could have implications for the so-called meta­verse, which is a series of virtual online communities that Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg touted last week as the future of the company. Those communities are powered by virtual reality and other advanced technologies, as well as data about users.

Facebook last year reached a $US550m settlement with the state of Illinois, which alleged the company was wrongfully using facial-recognition technology on residents without their consent.

In its blog post, the company called Tuesday’s decision “one of the largest shifts in facial-recognition usage in the technology’s history”. More than a third of the social platform’s daily active users are currently opted into the setting, Facebook said.

With the change, Facebook’s technology will no longer automatically recognise if someone’s face pops up in videos, photos or Facebook memories, the platform said. Users also won’t see a suggested tag in videos or photos they may be featured in.

The company said it would continue to pursue ways to use ­facial recognition as a tool for users to verify their identities.

The pivot comes as the company has been under substantial fire for its practices. A Wall Street Journal investigation showed the social-media company knew its platforms were riddled with flaws that cause harm. The Journal’s ­reporting also found that the company didn’t fix those flaws. Mr Zuckerberg has said the criticism paints a false picture of the company he co-founded.

Big tech companies have faced scrutiny on Capitol Hill over their sizeable reach and power.

Facial recognition, outside of Facebook, has become a popular way for some people to access things like their smartphones. Many of the biggest tech giants have grappled with its use by law enforcement and the potential for bias in how the technology is applied. Amazon and Microsoft said last year they wouldn’t allow police to use their facial-recognition tools – and joined other firms in calling for clearer rules around the surveillance technology.

“Every new technology brings with it potential for both benefit and concern, and we want to find the right balance,” Mr Pesenti said. “In the case of facial recognition, its long-term role in society needs to be debated in the open, and among those who will be most impacted by it.”

Facebook’s shift away from using its facial-recognition system will also affect a technology called automatic alt text, which is used for making image descriptions for those visually impaired, Mr Pesenti said. That technology won’t try to identify each person featured in a photo using facial recognition anymore, but it will still be able to determine the number of people in a photo, he said.

The Wall Street Journal