Facebook ends facial recognition over privacy fears
- The social media giant will shut down the long-criticised system and delete scan data on a billion people
- Facebook will no longer automatically identify people who appear in users’ digital photos
Scandal-hit Facebook is shutting down its long-criticised facial recognition system and deleting scan data on a billion people, it said Tuesday, in a shock response to privacy concerns.
The announcement came as the tech giant battles one of its worst crises ever, with reams of internal documents leaked to reporters, lawmakers and US regulators fuelling fresh calls for government regulation.
This policy change shuts down a feature that automatically identified people who appeared in Facebook users’ digital photos, and was key to the company building a global library of faces that became a magnet for controversy.
“This change will represent one of the largest shifts in facial recognition usage in the technology’s history,” wrote Jerome Pesenti, the vice-president of artificial intelligence at Facebook’s parent company Meta.
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“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,” he added.