Meta will retain some of its facial recognition systems, including its DeepFace model, and plans to incorporate biometrics into its metaverse products
The social network is scaling back facial recognition, but similar technology could show up in the metaverse.
VoxRebecca Heilweil
Context & Ripple Effects
Meta's retreat from Facebook's decade-old face-scanning system, including deletion of more than a billion users' scan data after legal and regulatory pressure, sits alongside its decision to preserve DeepFace and pursue biometrics in metaverse products. The split establishes a narrower product boundary rather than a full exit from the technology.
Facebook users lose the platform's legacy facial-recognition feature and associated face-scan data, while Meta retains DeepFace and related systems for uses outside that shutdown.
Meta's metaverse product teams retain a path to build biometric features even as its core social-network implementation is withdrawn.
Second-order effects
Meta must distinguish the governance, consent, and purpose of any metaverse biometric feature from the discontinued Facebook system, because the shutdown was tied to legal and regulatory woes.
The retained technology gives Meta a reusable base for narrowly framed safety and account-security deployments, as reflected in its later UK anti-scam facial-recognition rollout.
Third-order effects
Meta's subsequent use of opt-in and purpose-specific facial-recognition tests suggests that likeness-sensitive AI is being reorganized around bounded use cases rather than broad, default platform identification.
If that pattern persists, product-specific consent and regulator engagement—not a single companywide decision to keep or remove facial recognition—will shape where Meta can deploy biometric systems.
The trend: Facial recognition is shifting from broad social-platform identity features toward constrained, purpose-specific biometric tools governed by consent and use case.
Breaking News: Facebook plans to delete face scan data from over 1 billion users, shutting down a facial recognition system that became a privacy headache. https://www.nytimes.com/...
@katecrawford
Dr. Kate Crawford on x
So Facebook is deleting one billion facial recognition scans, but it's keeping DeepFace, the model that is trained on all those faces. Note that “the company has also not ruled out incorporating facial recognition into future products.” Very meta. 👀 https://twitter.com/...
@matthew_d_green
Matthew Green on x
Does anyone believe Facebook will really delete those face recognition templates, as in “nobody will keep a copy anywhere” delete?
@profcarroll
David Carroll on x
Told ya right here first: https://www.vox.com/...
@notdan
@notdan on x
Do you believe @Facebook is actually deleting facial recognition data? [Poll]
@panopticindia
@panopticindia on x
2. This move has come as a result of self-regulation in the wake of FB (or Meta) trying to rebrand itself. There is still no law in the US which will regulate FR and thus nothing stopping Meta from going back to using it again even if FB doesn't. 5/n https://twitter.com/...
@tyang209
@tyang209 on x
I am getting rid of my bank heist tools but keeping the money. https://twitter.com/...
@viss
@viss on x
@mcclure111 ... sounds like theyre ditching the data the model was trained on, and keeping the ‘already trained part’. youre dead on.
@ryan77anderson
@ryan77anderson on x
@Grady_Booch @Meta genuine question on GDPR -> re “right to be forgotten ” Q: would it not be impossible to keep using model in Europe, post data flush; because a MODEL REBUILD of ‘verifiably-compliant’ model (Minus any GDPR flagged EU faces) is no longer possible? @katecrawford …
@ellajakubowska1
Ella Jakubowska on x
#Facebook deleting their facial recognition database? In the words of the great Greta: blah blah blah 😴. They're keeping the algorithm and open to using it in future FB products. I'm finding this hard to see as anything other than a PR move... https://twitter.com/...
@mcclure111
Mcc on x
@Viss ... That's not what the New York Times article says, to my reading. Am I missing something? Can you point out a source saying this (that they're keeping the trained model)?
@rik_ferguson
Rik Fërgüson on x
... and in a flash, the GDPR “right to erasure” became meaningless. https://twitter.com/...
@joshuafarkas
Josh Farkas on x
Meta lost a $650m privacy lawsuit because of DeepFace in 2020 and $5B FTC fine in 2019, which called out this tech specifically. That's 56% of 2022's investment in the metaverse. The decision to turn off DeepFace was likely risk mitigation, not moral clarity. https://twitter.com/…
@ronwyden
Ron Wyden on x
Shutting down this program is Facebook doing the bare minimum to protect its users' privacy. Now Congress needs to pass a comprehensive privacy law to crack down on all the other ways that Facebook and shady data brokers abuse Americans' personal information. https://twitter.com/…
@docmattmoudi
@docmattmoudi on x
2. Yes, it deleted/will delete the database used for FR, but as @ellajakubowska1 has said, it retains the software product - DeepFace - that processes faces. Facebook is at liberty to start using this again whenever it decides “societal concerns” have shifted once again. [5/9] ht…
@katerosebee
@katerosebee on x
Facebook deleted all that faceprint data because the recognition modeling created, DeepFace, is already trained. They get to look magnanimous by tossing something they don't need anymore.
@viss
@viss on x
@mcclure111 ... i dont have a source for this, its how im interpreting the various articles. its a very facebook thing to do and seems very on-brand
@shiringhaffary
Shirin Ghaffary on x
“While Meta says that facial recognition isn't a feature on Instagram and its Portal devices, the company's new commitment doesn't apply to its metaverse products, Meta spokesperson Jason Grosse told Recode.” https://www.vox.com/...
@mcclure111
Mcc on x
@katecrawford @adrishaw Hi, could you clarify. The NYT article says Facebook is keeping the *algorithm*. But you say they are keeping the *model*. That sounds like a big difference. To me algorithm means “we're keeping the software” and model means “we're keeping the results of t…
@katerosebee
@katerosebee on x
To be clear: still a good thing to not have a gigantic facial identification dataset hanging around to be breached or reused on even worse ideas later. I just am skeptical that FB's decision wasn't largely based on having already extracted value from it.
@mcclure111
Mcc on x
@Viss ... I agree that Facebook lying about this would be on-brand
@ecmclaughlin
Elizabeth C. McLaughlin on x
It's called DEEPFACE?!?!? Facebook is just Bond-level villany. https://twitter.com/...
@panopticindia
@panopticindia on x
We welcome this move however we want to highlight that there are still reasons to be concerned about. 1. DeepFace: FB's facial recognition algorithm that it trained off of the facial data it had still exists. 4/n https://research.fb.com/...
@grady_booch
Grady Booch on x
So, @Meta decided their liability regarding facial recognition was higher than its value, threw away the training data in a public announcement, and kept the trained model. Meta is a profoundly unethical company, and it starts at the top, with Mark. https://twitter.com/...
@rmac18
@rmac18 on x
@kashhill Anyone reading today's move should be aware that Meta, Facebook, watever is reserving the right to deploy facial recognition on future products. Its future CTO discussed the possibility of using it in smart glasses in an internal meeting earlier this year. https://twitt…
@profcarroll
David Carroll on x
@katecrawford Those cartoon avatars aren't gonna make themselves.
@petermdenton
Peter Denton on x
@katecrawford @samfbiddle Once you got the model, you got the model. Do we not remember when FB had to remove Acxiom? It didn't matter! They already had a correlation model between behavior and consumption, based on demographics from Acxiom. Once you know the predictors, you just…
@eff
@eff on x
Facebook has announced they will be deleting over a billion face recognition templates as they shut down their entire face recognition system. This is great news for Facebook users, and for the global movement pushing back on this technology. https://www.nytimes.com/...