Facebook Shuts Down Its Facial-Recognition System

Facebook doesn’t point to a single incident that prompted the decision, but it comes as facial-recognition systems (and the social network in general) have come under fire.

- CHLOE ALBANESIUS

Meta will shut down Facebook’s facial-recognition system and delete the template it uses to recognize people in photos.

More than a third of Facebook’s daily active users have opted in to the system, which can suggest people to tag when you upload a photo. So axing the system “will represent one of the largest shifts in facial recognition usage in the technology’s history,” said Jerome Pesenti, VP of Artificial Intelligence.

Pesenti didn’t point to a single incident that prompted the decision, saying only that there are “growing concerns about the use of this technology as a whole.” But it comes as facial-recognition systems (and Facebook in general) have come under fire.