Meta brings its anti-fraud facial recognition test to the UK after getting a thumbs up from regulators

Last October, Meta dipped its toe into the world of facial recognition — an area where it has had a tricky record — with an international test of two new tools: one to stop scams based on likenesses of famous people, and a second facial recognition feature to help people get back into compromised Facebook or Instagram accounts. Now, that test is expanding to one more notable country.

After initially keeping its facial recognition test off in the United Kingdom, Meta on Wednesday began to roll both of the tools there, too. And in other countries where the the tools have already launched, the “celeb bait” protection is being extended to more people, the company said.

Meta said it got the green light in the U.K. after “after engaging with regulators” in the country — which itself has made a big point in the last few months of embracing AI. No word yet on Europe, the other key region where Meta has yet to launch the facial recognition tools.

“In the coming weeks, public figures in the U.K. will start seeing in-app notifications letting them know they can now opt-in to receive the celeb-bait protection with facial recognition technology,” a statement from the company said. Both this and the “video selfie verification” optional tools, Meta said.

When Meta first described the roll out of the two new facial recognition tools, the company said the features were not being used for anything other than the purposes described: fighting scam ads and user verification.

“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,” wrote Monika Bickert, Meta’s VP of content policy in a blog post (which is now updated with the detail about the U.K. expansion).

Yet the developments come at a time when Meta is going all-in on AI in its business. 

In addition to building its own Large Language Models and using AI across its products, it’s also reportedly working on a standalone AI app. It has also stepped up lobbying efforts around the technology, and given its two cents what it deems to be risky AI applications such as those that can be weaponized (the implication being that what Meta builds is not risky).

The company’s move to build tools that fix immediate issues on its apps is probably the best approach to gaining acceptance of any new facial recognition features. These features fit that bill. As we’ve said before, Meta has been accused for many years of failing to stop scammers misappropriating famous people’s faces in a bid to use its ad platform to spin up scams like dubious crypto investments to unsuspecting users.

Facial recognition has been one of the thornier areas for Meta over the years that it has worked with AI technology. Most recently, the company last year agreed to pay $1.4 billion to settle a long-running lawsuit in Texas, where it was being sued over inappropriate biometric data collection related to its facial recognition technology. 

Facebook in 2021 shut down its decade-old facial recognition tool for photos, a feature that had faced number of regulatory and legal problems. Interestingly, at the time it retained one part of the technology: its DeepFace model, which it said it would incorporate into future technology. That could well be part of what is being built on with today’s products.