Meta to begin using facial recognition tools to combat 'celeb-bait' adverts

Facial recognition will be used to compare faces in the ad with the public figure’s own Facebook and Instagram profile pictures

Meta is trialling facial recognition technology to safeguard users from "celebrity bait" adverts and assist in verifying identities and recovering compromised accounts.

The tech giant confirmed that the new initiatives would be tested worldwide, but are not currently coming to the UK or EU. However, it is "continuing to have conversations with regulators" in both regions regarding these tools.

Under the new system, when Meta's existing technologies identify a potential scam post featuring an image of a public figure "at risk for celeb-bait", facial recognition will be used to compare faces in the ad with the public figure’s own Facebook and Instagram profile pictures.

"If we confirm a match and that the ad is a scam, we’ll block it," the company stated. "We immediately delete any facial data generated from ads for this one-time comparison regardless of whether our system finds a match, and we don’t use it for any other purpose."

Meta revealed that early testing of this scheme with a "small group of celebrities and public figures" had yielded "promising results" in terms of "increasing the speed and efficacy" of identifying and removing scam ads of this type.

Over the coming weeks, it plans to alert a larger group of figures who have been used in scam ads about their enrolment into the new scheme, offering them the option to opt out if they wish.

Elsewhere, Meta said it was also now testing using facial recognition and video selfies as a means for people to verify their identity and regain access to an account that had been compromised.

The video would then be compared to the profile picture on the account the user was trying to access.

Monika Bickert, Meta’s vice president of content policy, said: “Scammers are relentless and continuously evolve their tactics to try to evade detection.

“We’re just as determined to stay ahead of them and will keep building and testing new technical defences to strengthen our detection and enforcement capabilities.

“We have vetted these measures through our robust privacy and risk review process and built important safeguards, like sending notifications to educate people on how they work, giving people controls and ensuring we delete people’s facial data as soon as it’s no longer needed.

“We want to help protect people and their accounts and while the adversarial nature of this space means we won’t always get it right, we believe that facial recognition technology can help us be faster, more accurate and more effective.