Facebook announced Tuesday that it will shut down its facial recognition system that automatically identifies users in photos and videos, arguing the growing concern of society over the use of such technology.
“Regulators are still in the process of providing a clear set of rules governing their use,” Jerome Pesenti, Facebook’s vice president of artificial intelligence, said in a blog post.
“Amid this ongoing uncertainty, we believe that limiting the use of facial recognition to a narrow set of use cases is appropriate, “he added.
The company, which was renamed Meta Platforms last week, said more than a third of Facebook’s daily active users have opted for facial recognition settings on the social media site, and the change will now remove “recognition templates. facial “of more than 1 billion people.
The removal will take place around the world and is expected to be completed in December, a Facebook spokesperson said.
Facebook added that its automatic alt text tool, which creates image descriptions for people with visual disability, will no longer include the names of recognized people in photos after facial recognition removal, but will otherwise function normally.
The suppression of facial recognition by the world’s largest social media platform comes at a time when the tech industry has faced a reckoning in recent years, amid criticism over the possibility that technology falsely identifies people or follows racial stereotypes.
Facebook has also come under scrutiny from regulators and lawmakers over the user safety and a wide range of abuses on its platforms.
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx