Meta trial to detect scam ads misusing images of celebrities

A group of celebrities, content creators and politicians worldwide, including key public figures in Singapore, will be enrolled in a facial recognition trial by Meta to identify scam advertisements that misuse their likeness.

- Osmond Chia

The system will compare the faces in the ads with their profile pictures to detect any unauthorised use on Facebook and Instagram - both run by the US tech giant.

Meta will inform a group of some 50,000 public figures through in-app notifications that they are being enrolled in the service. They can opt out at any time, Meta said in an announcement on Oct 22.

In a separate security feature, Meta is also using the same facial recognition technology to verify the identity of users to recover hacked accounts faster.

Meta's director of global threat disruption, Mr David Agranovich, said on Oct 21 that the pilot initiative using popular accounts aims to combat fraudulent ads that use real images of famous people to bait users to engage with the ads, which typically lead to scam sites, where they are asked to share personal information or make transactions.

The ploy, commonly called "celeb-bait", is against Meta's policies and undermines trust in its social media platforms, Mr Agranovich told the media.

The test hopes to enrol users who have been targeted by celeb-baiting, he said.

Suspected ads that contain a photo of a public figure's face will be run past a facial recognition software that compares the face on the ad with the public figure's Facebook and Instagram profile pictures.