Meta has been bringing facial recognition technology back to its apps for over three years. close The backlash against Facebook‘s ‘face recognition’ system is growing. Now the social network is starting to roll out. face recognition The company said the update brings tools from Facebook and Instagram to combat fraud and help users who are unable to access their accounts.
The first test uses facial recognition to detect fraudulent ads using the faces of celebrities and other public figures. “If our systems suspect that an ad may be a scam containing an image of a public figure at risk of celebrity baiting, we use facial recognition technology to compare the face in the ad to the public figure’s Facebook and Instagram profile photos. I’m going to do it. ”Meta explained in a blog post. “If matching ads are identified and we determine that the ad is fraudulent, we will block it.”
The company has already started rolling out the feature to a small group of celebrities and public figures, and says more people will start automatically signing up for the feature “in the coming weeks.” protect. Although Meta already has systems in place to review potentially fraudulent ads, the company isn’t always able to catch “celebrity bait” ads because many legitimate companies use celebrities and public figures to market their products. Monika Bickert Meta, Vice President of Content Policy, said at the briefing: “This is a real-time process,” she said of the new facial recognition feature. “It’s faster and more accurate than manual review.”
Separately, Meta is also testing a facial recognition tool to address another long-standing issue on Facebook and Instagram. Account Recovery. The company is experimenting with a new “video selfie” option that will allow users to upload a clip of themselves if their account is locked, and Meta will match it to the user’s profile picture. The company will also use this to prevent hackers from using stolen credentials to access your account if it suspects your account has been compromised.
This tool cannot help everyone who does not have access to their Facebook or Instagram accounts. For example, many business pages do not include individual profile photos, so those users will need to use Meta’s Recover Existing Account option. But Bickert says the new process will make it much more difficult for malicious actors to take advantage of the company’s support tools. “It would be much more difficult for them to try to circumvent our system,” Bickert said.
With both new features, Meta says it will “immediately delete” facial data used for comparison and that scans will not be used for any other purpose. The company is also making this feature optional, but celebrities will have to opt out of Scam Ad Protection, which is not optional.
This could draw criticism from privacy advocates, especially given Meta’s messy history with facial recognition. The company previously used this technology to support automatic photo tagging, which allowed the company to automatically recognize users’ faces in photos and videos. Feature has been discontinued in 2021Meta deleted facial data from more than a billion people, citing “increasing social concerns.” The company is also facing lawsuits, particularly in Texas and Illinois, over its use of the technology. meta paid $650 million To resolve lawsuits involving Illinois law $1.4 billion to settle a similar lawsuit in Texas.
It’s worth noting, then, that the new tool isn’t available in Illinois or Texas. According to Bickert, it won’t be released to users in the UK or European Union as the company is “continuing conversations with regulators” in those regions. However, according to a Meta spokesperson, the company “hopes to expand this technology globally sometime in 2025.”
