Facebook revealed a few days ago that it is discontinuing its controversial face recognition feature. The facial recognition system, which was released in 2010, has been dragged up multiple times by cybersecurity experts due to privacy flaws. However, this does not imply that the business is abandoning the face recognition technology completely. Meta, Facebook’s parent company, stated that it will continue to use the face recognition system for its metaverse products.
Meta has recently said that while the feature has been withdrawn from Facebook and its Portal devices, facial recognition will remain a part of its metaverse products. The parent company is exploring methods to integrate biometrics into its metaverse business.
“We believe this technology has the potential to enable positive use cases in the future that maintain privacy, control, and transparency, and it’s an approach we’ll continue to explore as we consider how our future computing platforms and devices can best serve people’s needs. For any potential future applications of technologies like this, we’ll continue to be public about intended use, how people can have control over these systems and their personal data, and how we’re living up to our responsible innovation framework,” Jason Grosse, Meta, a spokesperson told Recode.
Facebook said that it would no longer detect your photos automatically since it is discontinuing its face recognition system. The technology was used to identify people in photos and videos posted by users. Facebook displayed a message requesting users to tag themselves in photos uploaded by Facebook friends and acquaintances. While users may not see the negative implications of the feature, cybersecurity experts have constantly expressed concern about how the feature may be abused by the government.
Explaining why it decided to delete the system completely from its platform, Jerome Pesenti, vice president of artificial intelligence, Meta, said “Every new technology brings with it potential for both benefit and concern, and we want to find the right balance. In the case of facial recognition, its long-term role in society needs to be debated in the open, and among those who will be most impacted by it. We will continue engaging in that conversation and working with the civil society groups and regulators who are leading this discussion