Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. will no longer use facial recognition for photos and videos shared to the company’s flagship social network, saying it needs to weigh the benefits against growing concerns about the technology.
The social media giant has used facial recognition since 2010 to encourage people to tag friends or family members in photos and videos, and to alert people if another user uploads a picture that they’re in. It eventually added some privacy constraints, and in 2017 it let people opt out of facial recognition. In 2019 Facebook turned off the feature by default, though users could choose to turn it on.
Facebook on Monday said it will shut down this system for privacy reasons, and will delete more than 1 billion "facial recognition templates” it has collected over the years. More than a third of Facebook’s daily active users are currently using the feature, the company wrote in a blog post.