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Facebook plans to shut down its facial recognition system

nytimes.com

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Re: Facebook plans to shut down its facial recognition system

#91

Post by Yhippa »

sharkweek wrote: post #58

Here's where Facebook's brand reputation sits in my mind today: I do not believe them at all. I do not believe they've had some change of heart regarding "many concerns about the place of facial recognition technology in society." I do not believe they intend to not use this technology in some other privacy-invading way. Trying to figure out their real angle here. Avoid regulation? "Good" PR at a time when they despe…

I do wonder if they are merely substituting outright facial recognition with some other technology where they are able to identify a person in a particular piece of content. It could be text associated with content or the geographical proximity of people at the time content was captured or published.

Re: Facebook plans to shut down its facial recognition system

#92

Post by advisedwang »

It seems this is likely a result of the 2019 FTC Consent Order on Facebook [1]. Facebook has had to implement privacy processes which are monitored by a 3rd party who reports to a judge and facial recognition was one of the issues sparking the order.

The consent agreement [2] has whole sections and rules specifically for facial recognition data.

Likely a review program and criteria (approved by the monitor) were set up based on these rules, and when the tagging feature was pushed through this review it failed. Rather than risk the judge sanctioning them for failing to meet the order, they decided shut down the feature.

[1] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2019/07/ftc-i...

[2] https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/cases/c4365facebo...

Re: Facebook plans to shut down its facial recognition system

#94

Post by whimsicalism »

the_other wrote: post #78
captainmuon wrote: post #50

So sad that we can't have nice things. I like the feature that automatically tags people in pictures. Sometimes I have trouble remembering people's names (not face blindness or similar, just regular trouble I guess). I would love to have smart glasses that show the name of someone I've met before but don't quite remember. But alas, our society being what it is people will abuse facial recognition, so I can't have tha…

> I would love to have smart glasses that show the name of someone I've met before but don't quite remember. Or you could just tell them you don't remember. It's rarely rude. It's better to be human. We all forget stuff all the time. If we stopped imagining that everyone else is holding everyone else to impossible levels of "quality" we'd all be much better off. Just admit you don't remember their name. If you feel r…

> Or you could just tell them you don't remember. It's rarely rude. It's better to be human. We all forget stuff all the time.

I've decided that I must be atypical around name recall for some reason or another. I often do ask, because as you said it is human to forget, but I find myself forgetting like 3 times in the course of a conversation sometimes, I could really use a machine of this sort.

Re: Facebook plans to shut down its facial recognition system

#95

Post by Yhippa »

laurent92 wrote: post #33
xupybd wrote: post #4

They are finally realizing that they're scaring people away.

2021 is the “let’s bring back normal stuff” year, after Apple restored USB, HDMI, Magsafe ports and the F1 keys ;) What next, moving back from the Cloud, data ownership, Youtube having chronological ordering instead of “We chose what you should watch because we want to influence your political opinions” ???

Make Blogs Great Again

Re: Facebook plans to shut down its facial recognition system

#96

Post by nitrogen »

kapp_in_life wrote: post #77
SNosTrAnDbLe wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is are you ok with some stranger adding a picture of you on facebook and then facebook promptly tags you on their profile.

Knowing that someone I don't know uploaded a photo of me seems like a good feature, yes.

But now everyone else knows, too. That's not such a great feature.

Re: Facebook plans to shut down its facial recognition system

#97

Post by x0x0 »

sharkweek wrote: post #58

Here's where Facebook's brand reputation sits in my mind today: I do not believe them at all. I do not believe they've had some change of heart regarding "many concerns about the place of facial recognition technology in society." I do not believe they intend to not use this technology in some other privacy-invading way. Trying to figure out their real angle here. Avoid regulation? "Good" PR at a time when they despe…

fb just had to pay $650m to people in Illinois for blatantly violating their biometrics law.

I suspect that between Illinois and the EU, there's flatly no way to reliably legally do this.

Re: Facebook plans to shut down its facial recognition system

#98

Post by slownews45 »

Vrondi wrote: post #65
slownews45 wrote: post #35

It's always confusing to see what the internet police go after. Total scams ripping thousands to hundreds of thousands off from people (tech support scams etc). Crickets. An opt in feature on the facebook platform that is useful (at least to some). Multiple Attorney General press conferences :)

But their facial recognition is not opt-in. You cannot prevent other people from uploading photos of you then tagging your face in them, training Facebook's facial recognition to your face even if you consciously never upload your image a single time.

You can only be suggested as a name for someone else's photo if you've turned face recognition on.

"If you’d like other people to see tag suggestions for you, you’ll need to turn on your face recognition setting."

So you need to opt in to it to let others tag you.

Re: Facebook plans to shut down its facial recognition system

#99

Post by unsungNovelty »

whimsicalism wrote: post #94
the_other wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would love to have smart glasses that show the name of someone I've met before but don't quite remember. Or you could just tell them you don't remember. It's rarely rude. It's better to be human. We all forget stuff all the time. If we stopped imagining that everyone else is holding everyone else to impossible levels of "quality" we'd all be much better off. Just admit you don't remember their name. If you feel r…

> Or you could just tell them you don't remember. It's rarely rude. It's better to be human. We all forget stuff all the time. I've decided that I must be atypical around name recall for some reason or another. I often do ask, because as you said it is human to forget, but I find myself forgetting like 3 times in the course of a conversation sometimes, I could really use a machine of this sort.

Great! But if it is not without the consent of the person involved though, it is your "convenience" breaching someone else's privacy. I think it is important to think about this.
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