Facebook/Meta Shuts Down Its Face Recognition Technology

Facebook recently announced that it would shut down its Face Recognition technology in the coming weeks as part of a company-wide decision to limit the usage of face recognition in its products. In addition, it will delete the individual facial recognition templates. As a result, People who have opted into the Face Recognition feature will no longer be automatically detected in images and videos.

Facial recognition technology is a great tool that can help people with privacy, transparency, and control, allowing them to choose whether and how their face is used.

Every new technology has the potential to benefit as well as cause concern. In the case of facial recognition, the technology’s long-term influence on society must be considered openly and among those who will be most affected. Many people are skeptical about the use of facial recognition technology in society, and regulators are still working on establishing clear guidelines for its usage. Therefore, the Facebook team believes that, in light of the ongoing ambiguity, limiting the deployment of face recognition to a limited range of scenarios is the best course of action.

This will be one of the most significant changes in facial recognition usage in the history of technology. Facebook’s face recognition tool has been chosen by more than a third of Facebook’s daily active users, and its removal will result in the loss of over a billion people’s individual face recognition templates.

Facebook’s Automatic Alt Text (AAT), which provides image descriptions for blind and visually impaired users, will also be affected by the move. AAT currently recognizes persons in roughly 4% of photographs.

Nevertheless, Facebook isn’t giving up on the concept of employing face recognition, claiming that they’ll keep working on it and enlisting the help of industry specialists.

References:

1. https://about.fb.com/news/2021/11/update-on-use-of-face-recognition/

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