It’s been a while since Facebook last discontinued one of its major features. That’s why this recent news comes as a bit of a surprise because Facebook has decided to shut down its facial recognition program. Facebook will be deleting all of its facial recognition files and will no longer identify people in posted images.

Facebook explains:

“In the coming weeks, we will shut down the Face Recognition system on Facebook as part of a company-wide move to limit the use of facial recognition in our products. As part of this change, people who have opted in to our Face Recognition setting will no longer be automatically recognized in photos and videos, and we will delete the facial recognition template used to identify them.”

This is a pretty big change, considering that facial recognition was a key element that the company has stood by for years. However, it might not be as big of a loss as we expected, partly due to the feature being sparked by several ongoing fines and legal challenges, as well as its somewhat limited value when compared to rising costs.

Face-Value?

Facebook’s facial recognition has always been a topic of debate. For privacy advocates, it has always been a cause for concern, while the process itself, over its use and methods, has seemingly drawn only flak and fines for Facebook that number in the billions.

In February of this year, Facebook agreed to a $650 million settlement from a class-action lawsuit in Illinois on the grounds of its facial recognition process violating what is defined by the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also fined Facebook $5 billion in 2019 for alleged privacy breaches by its facial recognition technology.

The FTC claims that

“The FTC also alleges that Facebook misrepresented users’ ability to control the use of facial recognition technology with their accounts. According to the complaint, Facebook’s data policy, updated in April 2018, was deceptive to tens of millions of users who have Facebook’s facial recognition setting called “Tag Suggestions” because that setting was turned on by default, and the updated data policy suggested that users would need to opt-in to having facial recognition enabled for their accounts.”

And yet, Facebook manages to highlight that its facial recognition, to some degree, still facilitated valuable use cases, such as aiding visually-impaired users to get more benefits from its host of apps. It’s also said that Facebook’s facial recognition alerted users whenever their image has been shared online, which eventually saw high opt-in rates over time.

However, the damage done outweighed whatever advantages the feature offered the company. As incurred costs continued to mount, Facebook was eventually forced to assess the viability and overall feasibility of its facial recognition.

The Wrap

Though Facebook has decided to do away with facial recognition, it has not ruled out the future use of Face ID as a potential means to track and collect data. With a little bit of refinement and legal review, it may yet supersede facial recognition as a superior and less intrusive option. The New York Times also reports that Meta, Facebook’s newly named parent company, has considered building facial recognition into its AR Wearables Project, taking into account prevalent privacy concerns and tradeoffs.

As we approach a new age of digital connection, it’s highly likely that we wouldn’t need facial recognition at all, especially if the Metaverse successfully launches, thus providing us with our own personal ID tags in the form of online avatars. Perhaps as a personal device security measure, facial recognition does well but used in a broader online environment, it has way more lapses than benefits.

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Sources

https://bit.ly/3mGfivg