No more facial recognition: Facebook to remove feature amid privacy concerns
Ategie Edwards / Our Today
Facebook on Tuesday (November 2) announced that it would be shutting down its facial recognition system.
The move came in response to serious concerns about privacy at the social media network.
The facial recognition feature is one that automatically identifies users’ digital photos, which allowed the company to build a global library of faces.
Facebook’s decision comes as reams of internal documents have been leaked to reporters, lawmakers and internal US regulators, leaving the tech giant under major fire. Described as one of its worst crises ever, the company is expected to complete the removal by December.
The company’s facial recognition feature has been under scrutiny for a long time and back in 2019, it were fined 5 billion dollars to settle privacy complaints. This year, after it was alleged that the company collected and stored biometric data without users’ consent, they received approval for a class action of 650 million dollars.
Critics have shared that facial recognition, though a popular phenomenon, can compromise privacy, target market groups and normalise intrusive surveillance.
In a blog post, the vice president of Artificial Intelligence at the social media platform, Jerome Pesenti, stated that “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”.
Facebook, which last week changed its name to Meta Platforms, will also remove the alt tool function which creates descriptions for visually impaired people. The company, however, did say it would not completely rule out the facial recognition feature, as it is a powerful tool and can be used for functions such as identity verification.
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