Meta to Reintroduce Facial Recognition to Combat Scam Ads and Enhance Account Recovery
Meta is set to reintroduce facial recognition technology, this time to fight scam ads on Facebook and Instagram while maintaining privacy standards. The company aims to tackle “celeb-bait ads,” which use celebrity images to lure users to fraudulent sites. Meta plans to compare faces in these ads to public figures’ profile pictures, blocking those that match and are deemed fraudulent.
Meta will also use facial recognition to aid users in recovering hacked accounts, allowing them to upload an official ID or “video selfie” for verification. The company is testing this feature but acknowledges concerns over potential misuse by deepfake technology.
Meta’s decision to reintroduce facial recognition technology is surprising, given that it shut down a similar system in 2021 due to privacy concerns. Previously, the technology was used to help users tag themselves in photos, but legal issues in Illinois and Texas arose over the collection of biometric data without consent, leading to costly settlements.
Despite these challenges, Meta still sees potential in using facial recognition for privacy and security purposes. This time, the technology will not be tested in regions with strict regulations, like the EU, UK, Illinois, and Texas. Meta promises to use it only for security purposes and will delete any facial data immediately after comparison, whether there’s a match or not.
The company has conducted a thorough privacy and risk review and plans to start testing the technology to combat celeb-bait ads in December, with celebrities having the option to opt out. The “video selfie” account recovery feature will also expand to more users soon.
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