Three years ago, Meta decided to shut down its facial recognition system, but now it has decided to reinstate the program on Facebook and Instagram to combat fraud and restore access to compromised accounts.

Fraudsters are constantly changing their tactics to avoid detection, so the company relies on its existing defenses to test new ways to protect people, the Meta blog said.

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Meta to stop controversial facial recognition technology from 2021. Photo: Dailynews

According to Meta, scammers often use celebrity images to trick people into interacting with ads. The tool will match the faces in questionable ads to the celebrities' official Facebook and Instagram pages. If they match, the ad is identified as fraudulent and blocked.

In addition, Facebook and Instagram are also testing using selfie videos to verify a user's identity when their account is compromised.

It compares selfie videos with photos on the account to verify the legitimacy of the claim. These videos are never uploaded to the profile or shown to friends. Any facial data generated after the comparison is deleted.

Previously, Meta required users who lost their accounts to use other forms of identity verification, such as a citizen ID or official documents. With a selfie video, the verification process only takes a minute.

Facebook is abandoning its facial recognition program – which suggests tagging friends in photos – in 2021, deleting more than 1 billion samples after authorities warned of privacy violations and EU regulators began to clamp down on its use.

(According to Fortune)