The social media platform acknowledged that it had built such an app that was not released publicly, argued that it did not use it to identify people, and questioned whether the app could identify any member of the social network.
A report from Business Insider first mentioned the app, saying the app was developed between 2015 and 2016, but has since been shut down by the company and is able to identify anyone on the social network if there is enough data to do so.
`` Our teams regularly create apps to use internally as a way to recognize new technologies, '' a company spokesman said. `` The application described here is only available to Facebook employees and can only identify employees and friends who have done face recognition.
The app highlights how the social media platform is experimenting with features that may increase people's anxiety about their privacy.
Facebook has been criticized for using facial recognition in the past, and there were reports in October this year that Facebook's AI research team had developed a face tracking system to incorrectly identify someone in a video.
The anonymization system, which also works in live streaming videos, uses machine learning to change the key features of a topic in a video.
One of the articles explains the company's approach: Face recognition can lead to loss of privacy and face replacement technology may be abused to create misleading videos.
"Recent global events related to advances in face recognition and abuse technology call for an understanding of the methods that deal with anonymity, and our contribution is only appropriate for video, including live video, and offers far superior quality to other methods."
Facebook faces a $ 35 billion lawsuit for violating the biometric privacy law and alleged misuse of facial recognition data in the state of Illinois. A US court rejected Facebook's request to cancel the lawsuit.