Facebook announced on Tuesday that it will stop using facial-recognition software that can automatically recognise people in images and videos shared on the social network, signalling a major shift in the tech industry and for a corporation that collects large quantities of data on its billions of users.
Facebook, which changed its name to Meta in late October, also stated that it intends to destroy the data it obtained through its usage of this software, which is linked to the faces of over a billion people.
The decision was made in a blog post by artificial intelligence vice president Jerome Pesenti and comes as the corporation is under fire for the potential real-world consequences of its social platforms following the disclosure of hundreds of internal papers by a whistleblower. According to Pesenti, the world’s largest social network will shut down its facial-recognition system “as part of a company-wide move to limit the usage of facial recognition in our products” in the coming weeks.
However, Facebook will continue to work on facial recognition technology and may utilise it in the future in its products, which vary from social networks to a futuristic set of picture-taking spectacles.
“Looking ahead,” Pesenti added, “we still see face recognition technology as a powerful tool, for example, for those who need to authenticate their identity or avoid fraud and impersonation.”
In his piece, Pesenti raised worries about the technology’s appropriateness, which has come under investigation as it becomes more widely used but, at least in the United States, is barely regulated. “We must balance the beneficial use cases for facial recognition against growing societal concerns,” Pesenti added, “particularly as regulators have yet to set clear standards.”
The judgement, according to Woodrow Hartzog, a law and computer science professor at Northeastern University, is a “victory” that demonstrates the importance of continued privacy advocacy and criticism of digital corporations.
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“It also demonstrates that these technologies are neither inevitable nor unavoidable,” he added. Facebook’s decision to discontinue utilising the software and delete data relating to existing users of the function is a 180-degree turn from its previous position as a key user and proponent of the technology.
For years, Facebook has enabled users to opt into a facial-recognition feature that automatically tags them in photos and videos — a move that benefited the social network greatly because it made it easier for users to interact with one another, causing them to spend even more time on the platform. According to Pesenti, more than a third of Facebook’s daily active users — or more than 643 million people — had opted into the setting. Facebook had 1.93 billion daily active users in the third quarter of 2021.
Concerns over the accuracy of facial recognition algorithms, as well as underlying racial bias, have sparked debate. For example, facial recognition technology has been demonstrated to be less accurate when identifying individuals of race, and at least a few Black males have been erroneously detained as a result of its use. While there is no federal legislation governing the technology’s use, an increasing number of states and localities are enacting their regulations to limit or prohibit its use.
Stopping the usage of facial-recognition software, according to Pesenti, will also mean that Facebook’s automatically generated image descriptions for the visually impaired will no longer include names of persons who were detected in photos.
However, because the corporation will not stop working on facial-recognition technology in general, Hartzog warned that it may return at a later date, “possibly in a less visible but damaging to people” manner.
“Just because it’s not being used in this particular area doesn’t mean it won’t be used in other areas, such as their virtual-reality tools,” Hartzog said.
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