Last October, Meta immersed her toes into the world of facial recognition in an international test of two new tools. One is the second feature that helps people to stop scams based on celebrity portraits and return to Facebook or Instagram accounts they have compromised. Now, that tests are expanding to another notable country.
After first maintaining facial recognition tests in the UK, Meta also began rolling both tools there on Wednesday. In other countries where the tools are already on sale, “celebrity bait” protection is being extended to more people, the company said. It will also deploy tests across the European Union.
Meta said he gained green light in the UK after “after interacting with regulators” in the country. There is no word yet in other parts of Europe, another important region where Meta has not yet launched its facial recognition tool “testing”.
“In the coming weeks, public figures in the UK will begin to see in-app notifications and let you know that you can opt-in to receive celebrity bait protection with facial recognition technology,” Meta said in a statement. Both this and the new “Video Selfie Verification” for all users will become optional tools, Meta said.
Meta has a long history of tapping user data to train algorithms, but when it first rolled out two new facial recognition tests in October 2024, the company said it had no use of features other than the fight between fraudulent ads and user verification.
“We will immediately remove facial data generated from our ads for this one-time comparison, regardless of whether our system is consistent or not. We will not use it for any other purpose.”
Development comes when Meta is betting a barn on AI.
In addition to building large language models and using AI throughout the product, Meta reportedly also works on standalone AI apps. They also strengthened lobbying with technology-centric focus, giving AI applications two cents on what they think is dangerous.
Given the meta achievements, the move to build tools to fix instant issues in apps is probably the best approach to embrace new facial recognition capabilities. This is an area with a tricky track record.
This test fits that bill. As I said before, Meta has been accused of failing to stop scammers from repurposing famous people’s faces and spinning up advertising scams like suspicious crypto investments.
Face recognition has been one of the thorny regions of the meta for many years. More recently, in 2024, the company agreed to pay $1.4 billion to resolve a long-term lawsuit alleging inappropriate biometric data collection related to facial recognition technology.
Before that, Facebook closed its 10-year-old facial recognition tool in 2021. Interestingly, at the time the company chose to retain its deep-face model, which is part of the technology. It could be part of what’s built with today’s products.
Updated to note that the tests will also be run in the EU.
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