Facebook deletes data on more than a billion people. Maybe about you too
There will be a thorough cleanup on the world’s largest social network. From the Facebook servers, according to the official statement of the representatives of the newly named parent company Meta Platforms records from the controversial face recognition tool disappear. The mechanism, which officially focused on the automatic tagging of people in photos, has collected data from about a third of all users in more than ten years, ie billions of people. These were users who agreed to the use. The vast majority of these records are due to be deleted by December.
Of course, the facial recognition feature had a large number of opponents who criticized her unethical functioning. Among other things, several trials took place, the most important in the USA. In the home country of Facebook or Meta Platforms, a giant case around security issues and the testimony of former employee Frances Haugen is also very resonant at the moment. The results of this hearing undoubtedly also contributed to this step, although recognition to recommend tagging friends in a photo has begun shutting down the network from 2019.
What will change for Facebook end users? We don’t know the technical details yet, but for example the existing photo tags should probably be retained. Meta Platforms, however, with its statement promises that from the servers the data on the saved face templates of specific people disappears. The company wants to keep a small amount of data, for example, for emergency access to accounts or unlocking devices. Amazon, Microsoft and IBM have also recently taken the lead in not collecting this data or selling tools for storing it.
What do you think about face recognition?
Zdroj: Evening Standard
