Facebook has announced plans to shut down its facial recognition system and delete the facial print data of more than one billion people.

In a blog post, the company’s Vice President of Artificial Intelligence Jerome Pesenti said the move will “represent one of the largest shifts in facial recognition usage in the technology’s history.”

He said the company still believes facial recognition has a number of positive uses; however, it feels the need to weigh them up against the “growing concerns about the use of this technology as a whole.”

“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,” he said.

“Amid this ongoing uncertainty, we believe that limiting the use of facial recognition to a narrow set of use cases is appropriate. This includes services that help people gain access to a locked account, verify their identity in financial products or unlock a personal device.

“These are places where facial recognition is both broadly valuable to people and socially acceptable – when deployed with care.

“While we will continue working on use cases like these, we will ensure people have transparency and control over whether they are automatically recognized.”

Facial recognition

Facebook said the more than one billion people who have opted into facial recognition on the platform represent more than one-third of its users.

The change means people will no longer be automatically recognised in photos and video and Facebook will be deleting the facial recognition template used to identify them.

It will also affect the platform's Automatic Alt Text (AAT) function which creates image descriptions for blind and visually impaired people.

Mr Pesenti said the function will still work but will no longer include the names of people recognised in photos.

“Every new technology brings with it potential for both benefit and concern and we want to find the right balance,” it said.

“In the case of facial recognition, its long-term role in society needs to be debated in the open and among those who will be most impacted by it.

“We will continue engaging in that conversation and working with the civil society groups and regulators who are leading this discussion.”

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announces during the company's live stream that the new company will be called Meta. Image: Sipa USA / Alamy Stock Photo

The move comes after the company last week announced that it was changing its name to Meta as it turns it focus to technologies built for what it believes will be the next phase of the internet – the Metaverse.

It is facing one of its largest-ever public relations crises after whistle-blower Frances Haugen testified that the company uses algorithms that push extreme, divisive content and preys on vulnerable people to keep them scrolling.

At the Web Summit in Lisbon yesterday Ms Haugen called on Company CEO Mark Zuckerberg to resign.