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Facebook has addressed speculation that it was exploring options for its own variant of “FaceID” for its Messenger application, saying it was not accurate. The speculation began when what appeared to be in-development technology was uncovered by Jane Manchun and shared on Twitter. This led to a debate as to whether the biometric information would be stored on Facebook’s servers or held solely on the device.
Neither will be the case. Facebook has confirmed that any plans to add a biometric security layer to Messenger will use on-device security and the company does not plan to launch a version of its own. “For these types of privacy features,” a spokesperson told me, “we would use the Face ID settings on the device, not our own version.”
When it comes to advocates for user security and privacy, Facebook may not be the first tech giant that springs to mind. But the company has seemed desperate to find an acceptable use case for facial recognition, one that will not see a backlash from its vast user base. And so it was little surprise that the speculation began. We have seen the same with the platforms’s viral challenges and with the company testing its facial recognition algorithms on staff.
It is welcome news that Facebook intends to rely on tried and trusted device security. Hopefully, the company will now revisit its decision to stall end-to-end encrypting Messenger itself. The company has made a play for the privacy space, promising users that the end-to-end encryption that WhatsApp has done more than any other platform to popularise, will be coming to Instagram and Messenger. But it has now cycled back on those plans, as reported on Forbes.com by my colleague Kate O’Flaherty. “Due to the significant issues in adding the technology to an existing system,” she explains, “end-to-end encryption on Facebook Messenger could be years away.”
Facebook knows full well that there is serious commercial value in capitalising on the two billion users and hundreds of billions of images on its platform. How it might do that remains a challenge. Along with Google, it has the potential to develop better performing facial recognition than anyone else, simply given its access to training data linked to user details.
The company lost its Supreme Court review request last week over its use of facial recognition, and there is an indirect backlash over the claims in the U.S. that a vendor has scraped billions of images from the platform for its own purposes.
With some 2 billion monthly users, facial recognition remains a compelling opportunity for Facebook to explore. On-device access, though, has been ruled out.
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Updated later on January 26 with Facebook’s clarification.
