Facebook to end use of facial recognition due to society-wide concerns about the technology
Concerns about facial recognition technology have been a source of growing tension between users and technology companies for years. The technology is popular among a wide variety of companies, from retail to technology firms predominantly thanks to its ability to identify customers or users and help tailor experiences to their appeal to their preferences.
Longstanding concerns
The identification of private individuals raises privacy concerns, especially surrounding those who are vulnerable to persecution, such as marginalised groups, and critics fear it may help to normalize intrusive surveillance. Microsoft and Amazon have ceased facial recognition technology sales to police forces, and IBM has ended sales of all its facial recognition products as a result of criticism and societal concerns.
Facebook’s facial recognition software has long been a source of contention. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission listed it as a contributing factor when it fined Facebook $5 billion to settle privacy complaints in 2019. This year, a judge approved a $650 million settlement of a class action in the U.S. over concerns that the company had illegally collected and stored users’ biometric data.
Facebook, which recently renamed itself ‘Meta’, claims that over 33% of users had opted into the facial recognition setting on the site. The company will now have to delete the ‘facial recognition templates’ of over 1 billion people. The removal is expected to be completed by December.
Activists cautiously optimistic
Alan Butler, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said, “For far too long Internet users have suffered personal data abuses at the whims of Facebook and other platforms. EPIC first called for an end to this program in 2011,” though he said comprehensive data protection regulations were still needed in the United States.
In addition to the removal of facial recognition, the company will also remove the name of people recognised in photographs. This technology was used to provide image descriptions to visually impaired people.
The company stated that facial recognition technology was a ‘powerful tool’, and did not rule out using it in the future.
