Facebook to scrap facial recognition, kill user dataThe GuardianFacebook is to delete the “faceprints” of more than 1 billion people after announcing that it is shutting down its facial recognition system due to the “many concerns” about using the technology. In a statement, Meta, Facebook’s parent company, said that it would shut down facial recognition on the platform over the coming weeks and delete 1 billion facial recognition templates. “Amid this ongoing uncertainty, we believe that limiting the use of facial recognition to a narrow set of use cases is appropriate.”If users have opted into the face recognition setting, the faceprint used to identify them is to be deleted. If the face recognition setting is turned off, Meta said that there is no faceprint to delete. Complaints had also been filed with the US competition regulator and in 2012, a Facebook application to introduce facial recognition in the EU had to be withdrawn because no provision had been made to gain European users’ consent.

Source: Taipei Times November 04, 2021 02:39 UTC