Facebook Sunsets Face Recognition And Deletes Users’ Data Due to Privacy Concerns

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Shortly after going ‘Meta,’ the social media giant has announced abandoning a key Facebook feature that had triggered debates. As revealed, Meta has decided to down the face recognition feature on the Facebook platform. Alongside the feature removal, Facebook will also delete the data of users who opted for this feature.

Facebook To Abandon Face Recognition

As announced in a recent post, Meta will soon sunset the face recognition system on Facebook.

Elaborating more on this move, Meta revealed that this decision follows the growing privacy concern about facial recognition.

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.

Hence, despite all the benefits of this technology, Facebook decided to sunset this feature given the lack of proper rules governing face recognition.

There are many concerns about the place of facial recognition technology in society, and regulators are still in the process of providing a clear set of rules governing its use. Amid this ongoing uncertainty, we believe that limiting the use of facial recognition to a narrow set of use cases is appropriate.

Therefore, Facebook users who opted for face recognition settings on their accounts will no longer use it. The platform will remove this feature in the coming weeks, alongside the settings enabling its use.

Consequently, Facebook will also delete the data related to this feature. As stated,

If you have opted into our Face Recognition setting, we will delete the template used to identify you. If you have the face recognition setting turned off, there is no template to delete and there will be no change.

So, while people can no longer receive tagging suggestions based on face recognition, they can still go for manual tagging in pictures and videos.

This change will also affect Facebook’s Automatic Alt Text (AAT), facilitating visually impaired users.

Regarding the future steps around this technology, Facebook pledges to continue engaging with relevant groups and regulators.

Let us know your thoughts in the comments.