Meta Is Shutting Down Facebook’s Facial Recognition Program

[Tsing]

Image: Facebook



Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, has revealed that it will be shutting down its social media platform’s facial recognition system. The facial recognition program was originally implemented by Facebook to facilitate the identification of individuals in media such as photos, but privacy concerns have prompted Meta to terminate the system. Facebook’s Automatic Alt Text (AAT) feature, which creates image descriptions for blind and visually impaired people, will also no longer include the names of people due to the end of the facial recognition program.



From Facebook:



[…] the many specific instances where facial recognition can be helpful need to be weighed against growing concerns about the use of this technology as a whole. There are many concerns about the place of facial recognition technology in society, and regulators are still in the...

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[Brian_B]

They should have used the word "Terminating".

That sounds more appropriate.

 

[serpretetsky]

Huh. Didn't see that coming.

 

[Zarathustra]

Huh. Didn't see that coming.

Ditto.

This is positive, but I can't imagine it is anything but lipservice. They've probably just determined they don't need it in order to mine the data they want.

 

[MadMummy76]

Doesn't instagram also have facial recognition? So that's going away too then?

 

[Dogsofjune]

No facials? Hopefully they keep ATM....

 

[Uvilla]

Terminating as in contracting it out of course.