Facebook announces to shut down its facial recognition system

Social media giant Facebook on Tuesday announced that it is shutting down its facial recognition system. The announcement was made by Facebook’s Vice-President Artificial Intelligence Jerome Pesenti.

As per the statement by Pesenti, people would no longer be automatically recognised in pictures and videos.

“We’re shutting down the face recognition system on Facebook. People who’ve opted in will no longer be automatically recognized in photos and videos and we will delete more than a billion people’s individual facial recognition templates,” read the statement.

The move from the social media giant will also affect Automatic Alt Text (AAT), which creates image descriptions for blind and visually-impaired people. As per the details, after this change, AAT descriptions will no longer include the names of people recognized in photos but will function normally otherwise.

While Facebook, in its statement argued the positives of the facial recognition system, it also put forward the negatives and potential dangers of the technology.