Mark Zuckerberg’s social media company, Meta, is bringing back its facial recognition software on Facebook to tackle the rising cases of celebrity scams also known as “celeb bait” scams, where scammers use images of public figures in fake ads to deceive users.
The software shut down three years ago is being revived due to privacy concerns and regulatory pressure.
According to the company, the trial of the software, which will start in December, will automatically compare the Facebook profile photos of about 50,000 public figures with images used in suspected scam advertisements.
If Meta detects a match and identifies the ad as a scam, it will block it. Celebrities involved in the trial will be notified of their enrollment and can opt-out if they choose.
Global rollout
Meta said it plans to roll out the trial globally but will exclude some major regions such as Britain, the European Union, South Korea, and U.S. states like Texas and Illinois, where Meta lacks regulatory clearance to use facial recognition technology.
Meta’s Vice President of Content Policy, Monika Bickert, explained that the trial aims to protect public figures whose images have been frequently used in scam advertisements.
“The idea here is to roll out as much protection as we can for them. They can opt out if they want to, but we want to make this protection easy and available,” Bickert said during a briefing with journalists.
Privacy and data protection measures
To address privacy concerns, Meta said that any facial data generated during the trial would be immediately deleted after being compared with images in suspected scam ads, regardless of whether a scam was detected.
The company emphasized that the tool has undergone rigorous internal privacy and risk assessments, as well as consultations with regulators, policymakers, and privacy experts.
In addition to the celeb bait scam initiative, Meta is also considering expanding the use of facial recognition technology for non-celebrities.
The company plans to test using facial recognition data to help regular Facebook and Instagram users regain access to accounts that have been hacked or locked due to forgotten passwords.
Backstory
Meta’s reintroduction of facial recognition comes after the company shut down its facial recognition system in 2021 and deleted the face scan data of one billion users.
At the time, the decision was driven by “growing societal concerns” over privacy and the use of biometric data.
This August, Meta agreed to pay $1.4 billion to the state of Texas to settle a lawsuit accusing the company of illegally collecting biometric data.
Meta has also been the target of multiple lawsuits accusing the company of not doing enough to stop “celeb bait” scams.
These scams often use images of famous people, sometimes generated by artificial intelligence, to trick users into investing in fraudulent schemes.
