Facebook Shutting Down its Face Recognition System

Recently, Facebook shutting down it’s face recognition system that is used in its system of photo tagging over concerns regarding the technology has come as a shocker for many people but privacy advocates are relieved. As part of its plans, Facebook would be deleting around 1 Billion faceprints.

Facebook has rebranded as Meta stated that the program will end in the coming weeks. According to Meta’s VP of AI around one billion users were using the service.

For Facebook’s face recognition to work, a user’s face print is scanned which is then used to find videos and photos of the user on Facebook. The technology was also used to determine if a person was impersonating another user and also helped people with visual disabilities to identify people in a video or a photograph.

Why did Facebook decide to shut down its Face Recognition System?

Regarding Facebook shutting down its face recognition system, the company representatives stated that facial recognition tech is a powerful tool and there is a need for transparency and privacy controls so people can decide how their faces are used. In the present scenario, the company thinks it’s better if the technology is used in only appropriate cases.

It is further stated by the company that currently facial recognition technology should be used on personal devices for things like gaining access to phones.

As more than one-third of all Facebook users had opted for facial recognition software developed by it, Facebook shutting down its face recognition system will end in the deletion of around a billion individual facial templates. Moreover, people who had opted for the service won’t be able to automatically recognize videos and photos as templates used to identify them will no longer work.

You might be wondering how Facebook Facial Recognition Works?

You might be a natural at recognizing people’s faces and you probably have no trouble making out the faces of family members, friends, or acquaintances. It is easier for you to recognize them because you see them often.

On a vast, mathematical scale, that’s how a facial recognition system works. Facial Recognition technology interprets data the same way humans see a face and this stored information can be referred to as needed as per research almost half of all Americans have their faces stored in one or the other law enforcement database.

The following are the general steps and they might change depending on the technology used.

• A photo or a video of the user is captured. It could be from different angles, single or a group photo.
• Facebook’s proprietary software records the geometry of the face including distance from forehead to chin and distance between the eyes (these are considered important factors).
• On the basis of mathematical calculations that take into consideration various aspects of your face, a facial signature is made which is then used to recognize a person’s face across the Facebook platform.

Facebook’s Facial Recognition Software

The facial recognition software used by Facebook was created by using a deep learning facial recognition system to identify images of humans. It uses a neural network that has over 120 million connection weights and was initially trained by using more than four million images uploaded by users of the Facebook network

According to the research team at Facebook, the system has an accuracy rate of around 97% which means that many times it is more successful than human beings when it comes to recognizing images.

Currently, this facial recognition software was used by users to find photos of themselves and tag them. It is also used to protect individuals from identity theft.

Even though the pros and cons of using facial recognition software have been widely debated there are some cases where the technology could have had a massive impact. It can be used by authorities to find missing persons, identifying criminals from a group of thousands of individuals and such technology especially comes in handy at places like airports.

The Facebook Face Recognition System had all the bells and whistles. As the privacy of millions of users was at stake, Facebook ensured that state-of-the-art technology is used to protect the data.

The use of machine learning and artificial intelligence was an essential part of the facial recognition software that Facebook developed. It was trained using millions of datasets and the results were truly spectacular.

In conclusion, we would only like to say that it is soon to make a judgment call on whether the Facebook Face Recognition System was beneficial for the human race or if the more sinister application that the software might have is behind the early demise of a technology that could have truly changed the world we live in.

However, there is a slight chance that Facebook could keep developing the technology even if it is purely for research purposes.

Related Link : Facebook Tools For Group Admins To Reduce Misinformation