Meta restarts facial recognition technology to combat "celebrity bait" scams
Meta announces the restart of facial recognition technology to combat the "celebrity bait" scam. The company will recruit about 50,000 public figures for testing, automatically comparing their personal profile photos with images in suspected fraudulent advertisements. If a match is found and identified as a scam, Meta will block these ads. The testing is scheduled to be launched globally in December, excluding certain regions without regulatory approval
Sydney/New York, October 22 (Reuters) - Three years ago, Meta (META.O) shut down Facebook's facial recognition software amid strong opposition from privacy advocates and regulatory agencies. The social media giant announced on Tuesday that it will once again test this service to combat "celebrity bait" scams.
Meta stated that it will recruit about 50,000 public figures to participate in the test, automatically comparing their profile photos on Facebook with images used in suspected fraudulent advertisements. If there is a match and Meta deems these ads to be scams, they will be blocked.
Celebrities will receive notifications to participate in the test, and they can choose to opt out if they do not wish to participate.
The company added that it plans to roll out this test globally starting in December, excluding some large jurisdictions without regulatory approval such as the UK, EU, South Korea, Texas, and Illinois in the United States