Facebook to shut down face-recognition system, delete data on a billion people's faceprints
Menlo Park, Nov 2: Facebook said it will shut down its face-recognition system and delete the faceprints of more than 1 billion people.
This change will represent one of the largest shifts in facial recognition usage in the technology's history, said a blog post Tuesday from Jerome Pesenti, vice president of artificial intelligence for Facebook's new parent company, Meta.
More than a third of Facebook's daily active users have opted in to our Face Recognition setting and are able to be recognized, and its removal will result in the deletion of more than a billion people's individual facial recognition templates.
He said the company was trying to weigh the positive use cases for the technology against growing societal concerns, especially as regulators have yet to provide clear rules.
More than a third of Facebook's daily active users have opted in to have their faces recognized by the social network's system.
That's about 640 million people. The setting's removal will mean deleting more than a billion people's individual facial recognition templates, Pesenti said.
Facebook had already been scaling back its use of facial recognition after introducing it more than a decade ago.
The company in 2019 ended its practice of using face recognition software to identify users' friends in uploaded photos and automatically suggesting they tag them. Facebook was sued in Illinois over the tag suggestion feature.
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No row over Maharashtra CM's post; leaders of Mahayuti will decide: Fadnavis
Mumbai (PTI): Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday denied any row over the CM's post and asserted that leaders of Mahayuti will take a call even as counting of votes showed the saffron party-led coalition is heading for a landslide victory.
Addressing reporters, Fadnavis said the results of the Maharashtra assembly polls show that the state supports PM Narendra Modi and also thanked women voters.
"Opposition’s efforts of propagating a fake narrative, and polarisation of voters based on religion foiled by masses," said Fadnavis.
The Deputy CM said he succeeded in breaking the 'chakravyuh' of opposition due to the support of voters, the BJP team and party leaders.
With some leaders in BJP demanding that Fadnavis don the mantle of the next CM, the BJP stalwart said there was no row over the CM's post in Mahayuti- comprising BJP, Shiv Sena, and NCP.
"Leaders of Mahayuti parties will decide (on next CM)," Fadnavis told reporters in Mumbai.
He said the people of Maharashtra have shown that the party headed by Eknath Shinde is the real Shiv Sena of Balasaheb Thackeray.
As per the poll trends, the BJP has won 10 constituencies and leading in 120.
