Pesenti argued that lawmakers have dragged their feet
on laws governing facial-recognition software. “There
are many concerns about the place of facial recognition
technology in society, and regulators are still in the
process of providing a clear set of rules governing its
use,” Pesenti said. “Amid this ongoing uncertainty, we
believe that limiting the use of facial recognition to a
narrow set of use cases is appropriate.”
(CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also shifted blame to
Congress for failing to adequately address some of the
bigger problems on the social network, from
misinformation to liability for content.)
On the downside, the move means Facebook won’t be
able to identify people in photos using Automatic Alt
Text (AAT), which describes photos to people who are
blind or visually impaired. But AAT “depends on an
underlying technology that attempts to evaluate the
faces in a photo to match them with those kept in a
database of people who opted-in. The changes we’re
announcing today involve a company-wide move away
IURPWKLVNLQGRIEURDGLGHQWL¿FDWLRQDQGWRZDUG
narrower forms of personal authentication,” according
to Pesenti.
Facebook will explore more secure uses of facial-
UHFRJQLWLRQWHFKQRORJ\OLNHRQGHYLFHIDFHYHUL¿FDWLRQ
Pesenti said. But for now, the system will shut down in
the next few weeks.
What does that mean for you? Facebook won’t
automatically recognize if people’s faces appear in
Memories, photos, or videos. And you won’t get tagging
VXJJHVWLRQVZKHQ\RXXSORDGSLFV³,I\RXKDYHRSWHG
into our Face Recognition setting, we will delete the
WHPSODWHXVHGWRLGHQWLI\\RX,I\RXKDYHWKHIDFH
UHFRJQLWLRQVHWWLQJWXUQHGR̆WKHUHLVQRWHPSODWHWR
delete and there will be no change,” Pesenti said.
Pesenti argued
that lawmakers
have dragged
their feet on
laws governing
facial-
recognition
software.