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In a surprise move, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has announced that it is shutting down the automatic facial recognition system on Facebook, and what is even more surprising is that the reasons given stem from a concern about what is right and wrong.
Miracles still happen. Because that has never been a concern for Facebook, which has spearheaded the concept of pushing the boundaries of what is possible without a concern for whether it should be done at all.
Facebook has had to fight some big legal battles over its face recognition technology and user privacy concerns. This is likely a key factor behind this decision.
What does this shutdown involve? Here are key points from Facebooks’s press release [1]:
We’re shutting down the Face Recognition system on Facebook. People who’ve opted in will no longer be automatically recognized in photos and videos and we will delete more than a billion people’s individual facial recognition templates.
This change will also impact Automatic Alt Text (AAT), which creates image descriptions for blind and visually-impaired people. After this change, AAT descriptions will no longer include the names of people recognized in photos but will function normally otherwise.
We need to weigh the positive use cases for facial recognition against growing societal concerns, especially as regulators have yet to provide clear rules.
Meta says that more than one third of Facebook’s daily active users have automatic Facial Recognition setting enabled. The shutdown of this system means that the data associated with more than a billion users will be deleted.
How does this impact those users? In the following ways:
- Facebook’s technology will no longer automatically recognize if people’s faces appear in Memories, photos or videos.
- People will no longer be able to turn on face recognition for suggested tagging or see a suggested tag with their name in photos and videos they may appear in. Facebook will still encourage people to tag posts manually, to help them and their friends know who is in a photo or video.
- This change will also impact Automatic Alt Text (AAT), a technology used to create image descriptions for people who are blind or visually impaired. AAT currently identifies people in about 4% of photos. After the change, AAT will still be able to recognize how many people are in a photo, but will no longer attempt to identify who each person is using facial recognition. Otherwise, AAT will continue to function normally.
- If you have opted into Facebook’s automatic Facial Recognition setting, the template used to identify you will be deleted in the coming weeks. If you have the face recognition setting turned off, there is no template to delete and there will be no change.
All of these changes will happen in the next few weeks, says Meta. The company says that the long-term role of automatic facial recognition systems “in society needs to be debated in the open, and among those who will be most impacted by it”.
This sentiment is a welcome one. The bigger question is, Is this the beginning of a new, more open company than we have seen in the last decade? Will this attitude reflect across the company’s products going forward?
It was just five days ago that the umbrella company changed its name from Facebook to Meta. If you have been wondering about the the renaming, the company is now called Meta, while apps, Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp continue to bear their respective names.
References
- Source
Author:Mister Mobility
Digital Skills and Communication Coach | Mobile Phone Connoisseur since 2001 | Tech Blogging since 2004
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Microsoft announced Windows 11 to be an update to the already existing Windows 10, and since that announcement, there has been a lack of clarity about Windows 11 system compatibility. Why?
Microsoft’s operating system, Windows (for laptops and PCs) covers a wide range of products that come in various specifications. This in itself posed a problem to the Windows 11 update since it requires specific features to run smoothly on systems, and these features were not available on all systems. The age of different computers also staged a barrier to the update for certain users.
To address this issue, Microsoft listed out the system requirements for the update, but this still did not help when considering certain users that just buy their computers without an in-depth consideration of the specs. To help with this, we list below how to check if your system is Windows 11 compatible.
How to check if your PC is Windows 11 compatible usingMicrosoft PC Health Check App
Microsoft PC Health Check App.
After the release of Windows 11, most people used the requirements to check for system compatibility, but as earlier stated this is not a way out for everybody. So, there came the PC Health Check App.
For a while, the PC Health Check App was not responsive with checking for system compatibility, but thanks to an update from Microsoft the application is now up and running.
- Download the application to your PC via this link .
- After downloading the app, agree to its terms and conditions, and then install the application.
- Then open the application; at the top of the interface you will see a box that introduces Windows 11. Click the “Check Now” button.
- You will see if your system is Windows 11 compatible or not. If it is, you can go ahead to install the update.
Check if your system is Windows 11 compatible using the WhyNotWin11 Application
WhyNotWin11 is a GitHub open-source application which is not owned by Microsoft. You can get the application through this link .
The WhyNotWin11 application gives a more in-depth reason why your system might not be compatible with Windows 11. Big ups to the developer that pulled this through.
If after taking the steps sighted above to check if your system is Windows 11 compatible and it turns out that your system is, you can go ahead to install/download the update. It is important to note that the update might not yet be available on your system. This is because Microsoft will roll out this update gradually to Windows users worldwide. So do not be afraid. The rollout might take a whole year to be complete.
Author:KittysTech
Tech analyst, Collins Eshiet, writes about technology. Follow me on Twitter @KittysTech.
