Facebook shutting down it's Face Recognition system

[Kisai]

 

Summary

Facebook is deleting it's facial recognition database of one billion scans. 

 

Quotes

Quote

 

Facebook plans to shut down its decade-old facial recognition system this month, deleting the face scan data of more than one billion users and effectively eliminating a feature that has fueled privacy concerns, government investigations, a class-action lawsuit and regulatory woes.

 

Jerome Pesenti, vice president of artificial intelligence at Meta, Facebook’s newly named parent company, said in a blog post on Tuesday that the social network was making the change because of “many concerns about the place of facial recognition technology in society.” He added that the company still saw the software as a powerful tool, but “every new technology brings with it potential for both benefit and concern, and we want to find the right balance.”

 

My thoughts

I never thought I'd see the day that Facebook recognized how it was being used for malicious purposes. While facial recognition is useful, it ideally has a super-limited scope against the user's own personal photos, and not other users photos. It really offered a disservice, and pushed away people in marginalized communities from using Facebook in the first place.

 

Sources

 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/02/technology/facebook-facial-recognition.html

https://about.fb.com/news/2021/11/update-on-use-of-face-recognition/

[RONOTHAN##]

So Facebook no longer has its book of faces?

[adarw]

one small step for user privacy, one giant leap for Facebook meta to cover this with some anti-privacy terms and services.

[sof006]

I trust this statement about as far as I can throw it, which isn’t very far at all. I wouldn’t believe Facebook/Meta even if they told me the sky is blue. 

[Curufinwe_wins]

25 minutes ago, sof006 said:

I trust this statement about as far as I can throw it, which isn’t very far at all. I wouldn’t believe Facebook/Meta even if they told me the sky is blue. 

"Believing because" is different than "believing and"

 

Anyways, the statement itself totally worthless. I think the bigger situation is more that making these AI systems that are reliable enough to not require human review (and thus be useful to save money) has turned out to be extremely hard, and in bleeding edge novel cases smaller and higher detail datasets are more useful regardless, so no point to additionally leave themselves in a higher liability state.

--

Litany of Tarski

 

If the box contains a diamond,

I desire to believe that the box contains a diamond;

If the box does not contain a diamond,

I desire to believe that the box does not contain a diamond;

Let me not become attached to beliefs I may not want.

 

 

[Arika]

aka

 

"we're "removing" it from the public facing systems, we still plan to use it just without people knowing".

[Jtalk4456]

10 minutes ago, Arika S said:

aka

 

"we're "removing" it from the public facing systems, we still plan to use it just without people knowing".

no no no, they're COMPLETELY deleting it, they have to make room for their new database of 3d face scans from their vr headsets XD

[Moonzy]

So basically they can track us good enough that they don't need our faces anymore

[Delicieuxz]

I wonder if the US government already has its own copies of Facebook's templates. Either way, I expect that Facebook profiles are seen as a good training ground for facial recognition AI by more parties than just Facebook.

 

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/11/face-recognition-so-toxic-facebook-dumping-it

Quote

An earlier version of Facebook’s program collected faceprints from its users without their consent, which violated the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). The company settled a BIPA lawsuit by paying its Illinois users $650 million.

...

Facebook says that it will maintain the use of face recognition in “services that help people gain access to a locked account, verify their identity in financial products or unlock a personal device.” Also, the company imagines a future in which the technology could be reintroduced to make the platform more accessible. But for now, it has weighed that use against the ongoing social harms of face recognition technology. 

 

[xAcid9]

2 hours ago, RONOTHAN## said:

So Facebook no longer has its book of faces?

Yes, it's the new Meta.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

My only experience with their facial recognition system was a number of years ago when I posted an album and it proceeded to suggest tagging three completely different people as the same person. 

[Taf the Ghost]

3 hours ago, Delicieuxz said:

I wonder if the US government already has its own copies of Facebook's templates. Either way, I expect that Facebook profiles are seen as a good training ground for facial recognition AI by more parties than just Facebook.

 

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/11/face-recognition-so-toxic-facebook-dumping-it

 

Of course. Though the real reason for the shut down is probably incoming lawsuits or laws in a few spots. I'm guessing we'll find out about some wholly-owned subsidiarity that now controls the technology & databases.

[Mark Kaine]

Yeah, because they're changing it to "meta recognition".

 

 

[RejZoR]

"Delete" means "Deactivate" in Facebook's terms... Which essentially means "We're removing it from your view, but we're still keeping it for ourselves".

[justpoet]

11 hours ago, Taf the Ghost said:

Of course. Though the real reason for the shut down is probably incoming lawsuits or laws in a few spots. I'm guessing we'll find out about some wholly-owned subsidiarity that now controls the technology & databases.

This.  While it had plenty of flaws in the technology, data is data.  I'm sure it was sold or given or spun off, and as part of the agreement the origin won't be disclosed and they can legitimately announce they're deleting and no longer using it.  It was far too valuable for the greedy Zuck to just say "we're the privacy good guys, let's remove this".

[BuckGup]

17 hours ago, Delicieuxz said:

I wonder if the US government already has its own copies of Facebook's templates. Either way, I expect that Facebook profiles are seen as a good training ground for facial recognition AI by more parties than just Facebook.

 

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/11/face-recognition-so-toxic-facebook-dumping-it

 

100% yes and even beyond that. The FBI has custom SoCs from Intel that are privately made and used for their database systems. There's also dozens of 3rd parties now like ClearView AI that have better functionality then facebook

[wamred]

Dang, I never thought I’d see the day when Facebook would do something in the interest of privacy. 

[brickson98]

I'm willing to bet they're only doing this because something less obvious to the end user, but more invasive, is coming. Possibly that whole Metaverse thing? Maybe they're just making a good move here, who knows? But it's hard to trust a company like Facebook Meta. 

[Salv8 (sam)]

20 hours ago, Kisai said:

Facebook is deleting it's facial recognition database of one billion scans. 

the one we know of...

knowing them they probably have one facial recognition system per city that only zucc has access to for...    reasons...

[Ein0r]

They probably sold it to another entity and are not legally allowed to keep it anymore. Or whatever legal shenanigans there are behind this move. I doubt they actually give up this trove of data.

[Gork]

On 11/2/2021 at 5:41 PM, adarw said:

one small step for user privacy, one giant leap for Facebook meta to cover this with some anti-privacy terms and services.

Nothing online is private, thank, god. 

[Gork]

Personally I think general face shape recognition is really cool. Before people winge about privacy: anything online is not private. It's a feature.  Thing is though a lot of fantastic QOL comes from that: passwords right now are just assinine: must have capitals,  numbers: can not:

• be a name
• word
• your mamas apple pie recipie
• the time you reely go to bed mr gamer
• contain any month from the roman collander
• be your zodiac sign
• your chinese moon sign
• foot size
• name of a disease
• name your mom calls you
• name you boy friend calls
• name your girlfriend's mother calls you
• name of your dog
• name of a street
• and my favorite: anything you might actually remember 2 minutes from the time you had enough.

Face geometry (for example)? a simple picture of you (or what you want the world think you look like) and  poof into amazon primes 99k awfuly good movies list.

 

[GoodBytes]

Wait wait wait.. you said...

"Facebook plans to shut down [...] this month"

Meaning that this month, if no delays, they may be able to shut it down. Whether the plan is executed or not, that is a different story, let alone successfully or not. And "when", is another discussion.

 

plans is not: will

 

And we don't know what will actually end up with:

Facebook: "Oh yea yea yea, we, Facebook wanted to do it, but its Meta decision now..."

Meta: "Don't look at us, Meta, our beautiful, perfect, privacy focused company! This is a Facebook decision, see with them!.. (by the way, when we said in our privacy policy that we take privacy seriously, we mean OUR privacy is taken seriously, not yours, LOLz!)"