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Facebook is shutting down its facial recognition capabilities

"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."

A smartphone screen with the Facebook logo in front of a larger Facebook logo.

Facebook is deleting more than one billion users' facial recognition templates.

Photo illustration: Igor Golovniov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Facebook is deleting more than one billion users' facial recognition templates and turning off facial recognition capabilities amid what the company called "ongoing uncertainty" about the proper role of facial recognition technology in society. Facebook began offering users the ability to automatically detect their faces in photos uploaded to the platform in 2010.

"This change will represent one of the largest shifts in facial recognition usage in the technology's history," Jerome Pesenti, Facebook's vice president of artificial intelligence, wrote in a blog post Tuesday. "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. Amid this ongoing uncertainty, we believe that limiting the use of facial recognition to a narrow set of use cases is appropriate."

Facebook will still enable facial recognition for certain functions, like helping people access locked accounts and verify their identities, Pesenti wrote. "While we will continue working on use cases like these, we will ensure people have transparency and control over whether they are automatically recognized," he said.

The changes will affect functionality, including automatic tagging suggestions and automatic alt text, which is auto-generated descriptive text for people who are blind or visually impaired. "After the change, AAT will still be able to recognize how many people are in a photo, but will no longer attempt to identify who each person is using facial recognition," Pesenti wrote.

The use of facial recognition by tech companies including Facebook has been deeply controversial, particularly as Facebook ventures into the world of augmented and virtual reality. Last year, Buzzfeed reported that Facebook was weighing whether to add facial recognition to its new smart glasses.

Facebook's privacy policy director, Kevin Bankston, who formerly worked for the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU, both of whom have been critical of facial recognition technology, praised Facebook's decision on Twitter. "I'm very proud of the work--both internally, and from the many privacy advocates working on these issues--that has led to today's announcement that Facebook will be shutting down its facial recognition system and deleting over a billion face prints," Bankston tweeted.

Issie Lapowsky

Issie Lapowsky ( @issielapowsky) is Protocol's chief correspondent, covering the intersection of technology, politics, and national affairs. She also oversees Protocol's fellowship program. Previously, she was a senior writer at Wired, where she covered the 2016 election and the Facebook beat in its aftermath. Prior to that, Issie worked as a staff writer for Inc. magazine, writing about small business and entrepreneurship. She has also worked as an on-air contributor for CBS News and taught a graduate-level course at New York University's Center for Publishing on how tech giants have affected publishing.

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