Meta is shutting down Facebook's face ID system, will delete billions of user photos from its database

Facebook will no longer detect your pictures and videos automatically because social media is shutting down its controversial face recognition system. People who had opted in for the Face Recognition setting will not be automatically recognised in pictures. Facebook has said that it will completely delete the facial recognition template used to identify them. Getting rid of the facial recognition system, which it introduced 10 years ago, is the first strategic move by the social media giant after changing its parent name to Meta. The feature was long criticised by the watchdogs of society for its privacy concerns, misuse by the government authorities et al.

The facial recognition system identified people who appeared in the pictures, videos posted by users. Facebook showed a prompt asking the users to tag themselves in the picture uploaded by their Facebook friends, acquaintances. While the users may not see the adverse affects of the feature, cyber security experts have always raised alarms about how the feature can be misused by the governments.

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." He reiterated that the company sees the facial recognition system as an important tool but doesn't want to overlook its concerns.

What does shutting down of Facial Recognition System mean?

Facebook still believes that the facial recognition system is valuable but did not turn a blind eye to the concerns raised by the security experts. The services it enables will be removed over the coming weeks, as will the setting allowing people to opt into the system. In the coming weeks, Facebook will no longer automatically recognize if people's faces appear in Memories, photos or videos. This was an opt-in feature, so users will no longer be able to turn on face recognition for suggested tagging or see a suggested tag with their name in photos and videos they may appear in. Facebook now encourages users to tag their friends, acquaintances to tag posts manually.

How will the removal of the Facial Recognition System impact other features?

The removal of the facial recognition systems from Facebook will majorly impact Automatic Alt Text (AAT), a technology Facebook used to create image descriptions for people who are blind or visually impaired. The Facebook blog reveals the AAT technology automatically identifies people in about 4 per cent of photos. However, even now the AAT technology will be able to identify how many people are in a photo, but will no longer attempt to identify who each person is using facial recognition. Apart from this, there would be no changes in the system, Facebook will continue working closely with the blind and visually impaired community on technologies to improve the AAT.