Facebook eliminates face recognition – deletes data

The decision means that Facebook will remove more than a billion individual facial recognition templates used to identify them in photos and videos.

“We need to weigh the positive uses of facial recognition against growing societal concerns, especially since regulators have yet to provide clear rules,” Jerome Bisenti, head of AI for Facebook’s new parent company Meta, wrote in a blog post.

He was previously sued

Facebook has previously been sued in the US state of Illinois for collecting biometric data for facial recognition, which goes against state laws. In the spring, the company reached an agreement on compensation equivalent to 5.5 billion Swedish kronor with representatives of 1.6 million users in the state.

The job will be discontinued in the coming weeks. More than a third of Facebook’s daily active users have chosen to have their faces recognized through the platform, according to Pesenti.

He writes: “In the future, we continue to see facial recognition technology as a powerful tool, for example for people who need to verify their identity or to prevent fraud and identity theft.”