MEta has deleted a portion of code that essentially activated facial recognition on its smart glasses app. The social network’s action comes a day after a report published by Wired revealed that the owner of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram had quietly embedded the code into Meta AI.
The code in question would’ve effectively enabled a feature that would allow the NameTag system in Meta AI to convert faces captured by the glasses into unique biometric signatures. These biometric signatures, also known as faceprints, are just another form of identification. Basically, facial recognition technology similar to what you use to unlock your phone, to verify a transaction on your bank, and so on and so forth.
Wired also discovered that the faces that the NameTag system would store faces that the system failed to recognise — cropped, indexed, and stored locally for future use. Naturally, Wired had questions, the first being how long the facial recognition data had been in play. On that note, it was unclear how long the NameTag feature would retain pictures and other biometric data on a user’s device, but more importantly, whether said data would ever be sent back to Meta servers.
“Meta’s sneaky tactics in slipping the face-recognition code into its smart glasses show exactly why data privacy bills need the teeth of strong enforcement,” Kade Crockford director of the technology for liberty program at the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, said. “Companies like Meta prioritize their bottom line, so lawmakers need to speak in the only language its C-suite understands.”
At the time of writing, Meta did not respond to any of Wired’s questions, nor did it provide any explanation to its action. A spokesperson simply said that the feature was purely exploratory and that “No final decision has been made on wahat to do here, if anything”.
(Source: Wired)
