Meta to Fight Celeb-Bait Scams with Facial Recognition

Meta has announced it is deploying facial recognition technology to detect celeb-bait ad scams and recover compromised accounts.

The social media giant is testing the technology on Facebook and Instagram, and hopes the approach will help inform the wider industry’s defenses against online scammers.

The firm said it has vetted this use of facial recognition technology through a privacy and risk review process. Meta added that it will maintain discussions with regulators, policymakers and other experts about its investments in this area.

“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,” Meta stated.

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Matching Celeb Faces to Detect Scams

Celeb-bait ad scams involve scammers using images of public figures to lure people into clicking on links to fraudulent websites where they are asked to share personal information or send money.

Meta noted that these scam ads can be difficult to detect. Its current ad review system relies primarily on automated technology to review the millions of ads that are run across Meta platforms every day.

Now, the company will use facial recognition technology to analyze those ads its systems suspect of being a celeb-bait scam.

This will work by comparing the faces in the advert to the public figure’s Facebook and Instagram profile pictures. If a match is confirmed and the ad is determined to be a scam, it will be blocked.

Meta emphasized it will immediately delete any facial data generated from ads for this one-time comparison, regardless of whether its system finds a match, and will not use it for any other purpose.

In the coming weeks, a large group of public figures will be notified that they are being enrolled in this protection, following early testing with a small group of celebrities and public figures.

Meta said this testing demonstrated facial recognition is able to increase the speed and efficacy with which it can detect and enforce against this type of scam.

Public figures enrolled in this protection can opt-out in their Accounts Center anytime.

Recovering Compromised Accounts Through Facial Recognition

Simultaneously, Meta announced it is testing video selfies as a means for people to verify their identity and regain access to compromised accounts.

For accounts suspected to have been compromised, the user will have the option to upload a video selfie, and Meta will use facial recognition technology to compare the selfie to the profile pictures on the account they’re trying to access.

Meta said that any video selfie that has been uploaded will be encrypted and stored securely, and any facial data generated after this comparison will be immediately deleted, regardless of whether there’s a match or not.

The approach is designed to combat hackers’ exploitation of traditional document-based identity verification for account recovery.