Facebook Shuts Down Facial Recognition Technology: November 4, 2021

Facebook has said it will stop using facial recognition technology and delete its database of one billion faceprints in the coming weeks.

Meta, the company that owns the site and formerly known as Facebook, has recently came under scrutiny for privacy issues and the potential real harm its platforms causes in the real world.

Its Vice President of Artificial Intelligence Jerome Pesenti said in a blog post that the decision is part of a company-wide move to limit the use of facial recognition in their products.

He said while facial recognition technology is a powerful tool to verify identity, it needs strong privacy and transparency controls to let people limit how their faces are used.

Mr Pesenti also said because there are many concerns surrounding privacy and regulators are playing catchup, the company believes that limiting the use of facial recognition to a narrow set of use cases is appropriate.

Dr Andrew Chen is a Research Fellow at the University of Auckland’s Koi Tū - Centre for Informed Futures.  He spoke to Justin Wong.