Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Facebook Shuttering Facial Recognition System, Will Delete Data From Over a Billion Users

MacRumors said:


Facebook is shutting down its Face Recognition system and will delete the facial data of more than 1 billion of its users, Facebook parent company Meta announced this morning.

facebook-facial-recognition-disabled.jpg

People who opted in to Face Recognition will no longer be automatically recognized in photos and videos, and their facial recognition templates will be deleted.

According to Facebook VP of Artificial Intelligence Jerome Pesenti, Facebook is making this change because it needs to weigh the positive use cases for facial recognition against growing societal concerns" as regulators "have yet to provide clear rules."

Facial recognition has been available on Facebook since 2011, and at the time that it debuted, Facebook turned the feature on automatically for more than 500 million people. The option, called Tag Recognition at the time, was designed to recognize Facebook users in photos and videos posted by other users, tagging all of the people in the photo.

There were immediate privacy concerns with the launch of the feature, which have persisted to this day. Facebook in December 2017 introduced an expanded Face Recognition feature and with it, an opt-out option.

Facebook says that more than a third of Facebook's daily active users have facial recognition enabled, and the change required "careful consideration." It will disable an Automatic Alt Text feature for blind users that automatically provided the names of people in photos.

Though Face Recognition in its current incarnation is shutting down, Facebook will continue to work on facial recognition technologies.Face Recognition and the features that it enables will be officially removed "over the coming weeks." When disabled, people will no longer be automatically recognized in photos, and will no longer see suggested tags.

Article Link: Facebook Shuttering Facial Recognition System, Will Delete Data From Over a Billion Users
Click to expand...
They will delete the data after they sell it to the FBI first.
 
They may have just put the actual server offline and did not necessarily delete all the data they have gathered all these years.

Facebook should just revert back to what it was before, pre-2010, or better yet, delete the entire website and all the data gathered through the years. Instagram should be freed from Facebook (or Meta as they would like to call themselves when referring to the company) and be left as a standalone product. I have not used WhatsApp but they could also leave it alone to stand on its own.
 
  • Like
Reactions: lepidotós
I have an account from years ago that was disabled due to violation of terms as per Facebook which I did not commit any violation at that time... I was wanting to update the username/vanity URL of the FB account I just created a few months ago however the username I wanted to use for some reason has been assigned to that old disabled account when I tried logging in with just the username and not the full email address... I was looking to use the same username/vanity URL for my 3 accounts, FB, IG, and Twitter, but FB decided to lock it to the disabled account... I don't know how FB was able to do that when I was not able to log in to the disabled account for at least 10 years now...
 
  • Like
Reactions: lepidotós
Derekuda said:
You act as if apple is some saint. You are naive if you think apple doesn't track your stuff. What you buy in the app store, how much you spend on your apple card, how many times you ask siri to call your mom (because she just can't get the pronunciation correct). Apple loves to shove privacy marketing all over their ads with how they don't let "other" companies look at your data, but i guarantee that excludes themselves.
Click to expand...

Yeah, yeah. Apple is so evil that they kidnap you and force you to spend your time on Apple forums talking about how evil they are.
 
  • Haha
  • Love
Reactions: Captain Trips and cyanite
mrz_V1 said:
And you seriously think by you getting emails about your disabled account somehow is less worse than Google having an entire operating system (pc and phone), google search engine which doesnt even require an account for you to use (anonymous user tracking capabilities), Ad-words (tracking on any hosted site with ad-words)..... yikes.. I would call you ignorant but that would be rude
Click to expand...
Oh, I just suggested the least of it. The misinformation and bigotry that Facebook have promoted are on another level. What we've seen of Facebook's ability to screw with people world-wide has been quite interesting.

If your analysis happens so quickly without deeper thought, I would find that amusing.
 
beerseagulls said:
I would like to know what kind of people still use Facebook on a regular basis? None of my relatives, co-workers or friends still use it. (except about 10 of them) For me, it just seems like a very outdated platform... almost like what MySpace was like back then.
Click to expand...

I'm using it for a few reasons: maintaining my band's page, keeping in touch with various events in my neighborhood (gigs, exhibitions and stuff, because everyone uses facebook for this), and keeping in touch with some friends.

With all of its downsides (which are plenty of course), it's still the most usable social network for me. There is actual music, articles, news, movies, with decent preview so I can choose what's of my interest, and filter it (to some extent though). I wonder where people without FB inform themselves about things going on. Also, I find Twitter suitable for politicians, celebrities and attention whores, and Instagram more of gen Z thing (99% of people posting ****** nofilter/filter photos, and I never understood the point of stories). TikTok is the monster creep in its own category.
 
Wasn't there an issue some time back where Facebook said that users could delete their accounts and all the data/information within but yet it was found out that Facebook never actually deletes users accounts. If this was true then why should anyone think that Facebook is going to delete facial recognition data.
 
Dear users, we will delete your data, now that we have the meta data.

Yours truly,
Face… I mean, Meta.
 
IIGS User said:
Facebook is evil, and I don't believe for one second they're saying they are deleting this information out of the kindness of their heart. They have a reason other than social responsibility.

I also believe beyond a doubt that back ups, secretly stuffed away someplace exists.

None of these companies is actually honest with their users about data privacy, or corporate governance, or social responsibility. None of them do anything for the end user.

You are the product, the shareholders are the ones that benefit. Every time.

Facebook ain't deleting nuthin'....
Click to expand...
Expect Zuckerberg handing over all that user information and facial IDs to his Lord and Master Trump in 5,4,3,2,1!
Then expect Trump to bombard those people with adds begging for more money in 1! lol
 
1. Facebook doesn't need your face to recognize you
2. Your face doesn't matter in the metaverse. You can have whichever face you want to have
 
mrz_V1 said:
They could shutdown today and there will still be people out there complaining about it. I'm convinced the people that live and breathe to hate facebook are the ones logging in everyday posting about how much they hate it, following toxic people and pages, and then in turn telling everybody how bad the experience is. Google has an entire operating system for them to track your use and hardly anyone even mentions it.. Google is the OG of privacy invasion and they seem to get little coverage these days.
Click to expand...
I agree to a point but must say that with regards to Facebook there is a good and I mean GOOD reason why people hate them so much.
Actually there are countless reasons why people hate them so much and just because they take one small seemingly positive step it does not mean they should get applauded.
As to Google this is why I do not use them!
 
Derekuda said:
You act as if apple is some saint. You are naive if you think apple doesn't track your stuff. What you buy in the app store, how much you spend on your apple card, how many times you ask siri to call your mom (because she just can't get the pronunciation correct). Apple loves to shove privacy marketing all over their ads with how they don't let "other" companies look at your data, but i guarantee that excludes themselves.
Click to expand...
Except that under Cook Apple has a far better track record than Facebook who has gone from disaster to disaster regarding privacy, but then I guess according to you there was no such thing as Cambridge Analytica right?
 
Unsupported said:
Well, they shut down Mr. D. Trump because they didn't like him. They give people bans, known as being in Facebook jail for varying periods of time for posting comments they don't like.

Shall I continue?

View attachment 1900746
Click to expand...
Well they only shut Trump down once Twitter and all other non Facebook sites banned him and they then said it would only be a temporary ban!
They also refuse point blank to ban extreme terrorist comments, anti women comments and extreme right won hate that still calls for anyone who does not bow down to Trump to be killed. Facebook also allows extreme child pornography to be shared with impunity, but hey they ban comments from people who criticise Trump...shall I go on???
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back