“We’ll continue working with regulators, experts, policymakers, and other key stakeholders to ensure we build additional technical defences in a responsible and privacy-protective way.”

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That last point is key because privacy concerns were front and centre of Meta’s last major public dalliance with facial recognition. In 2020, it agreed to pay almost $1 billion after a US lawsuit alleged its tagging suggestion system (which prompted users to tag each other in photos if it recognised another user) breached privacy laws. It shut that system down in 2021, but another US lawsuit the following year alleged Meta had in some cases stored facial recognition data from users without their consent, and the company settled for another $2 billion.

This time, Meta says any collected data will be deleted immediately after the match or non-match is confirmed, and that the data will not be used for any other purpose.

That same approach goes for another new facial recognition system the company has created, which will be used to help people regain access to their accounts if they’ve been hijacked or locked out.

If someone needs to prove they’re the true owner of an account, they’ll be given the option to take a “video selfie”, turning on their phone camera to scan their face. Meta’s system will then match the video against existing profile pictures on the account, issue new login credentials if there’s a match, and delete the recognition data.

Of course, this will only work if you have actual photos of your face attached to your Facebook or Instagram account.

“It is recommended that people have a clear profile pic in their library. We will use any and all profile photos in your library. So as long as there are stored photos of your face, you can participate in the trial,” the Meta spokesperson said.

“We’re taking an iterative approach with this test, and will rely on its results and on feedback from external experts to make adjustments as we continue to roll it out.”

Meta will continue to offer other account recovery methods, such as uploading a government ID. But it claims the video selfie will be the quickest and easiest method, and also one that will be very difficult for hijackers to exploit.

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