Say goodbye to automatic face tagging, Facebook shuts Automatic Face Recognition

If you have ever uploaded a photo on Facebook then you may have noticed how the social media platform easily recognizes the people in the photo and automatically tags you. This is said to be the most powerful AI feature of Facebook yet. However, the platform is officially dropping one of the most convenient features. In a nutshell, every time you upload a photo on Facebook, the platform will no longer recognize the photo and tag people for you.

In addition, people’s faces will not be recognized in memories, photos, or videos and users will have to manually tag people in pictures. These changes are expected to happen in the upcoming weeks. According to the company:

“We need to weigh the positive use cases for facial recognition against growing societal concerns, especially as regulators have yet to provide clear rules. Facial recognition’s long-term role in society needs to be debated in the open, and among those who will be most impacted by it. We will continue engaging in that conversation and working with the civil society groups and regulators who are leading this discussion.”

Moreover, the Automatic Alt Text feature that created image descriptions for bling people will not show the names of people recognized in photos.