Facebook Agrees to Delete ‘facial recognition templates’

By Yasma Baalbaki

According to NBC, Facebook will constrain ‘facial recognition templates’ for more than 1 billion users.

The company has received several complaints, lawsuits, and criticism regarding its practices. In addition, lawyers and privacy advocates have questioned the facial scanning and recognition feature Facebook uses. In fact, “a federal judge approved a settlement of a class-action lawsuit in Illinois in which Facebook agreed to pay $650 million for allegedly using face-tagging and other biometric data without the permission of users” (NBC).

In spite of that, Jerome Pesenti, Facebook’s ​​vice president for artificial intelligence claimed that Facebook will continue to “use facial recognition technology for a “narrow set of use cases.” Those would include helping people gain access to a locked account, verify their identity in financial products or unlock a personal device.”