Facebook owner Meta testing facial recognition to fight ‘celeb-bait’ scams

MANILA, Philippines – Facebook parent company Meta is testing facial recognition software to crack down on scammers using celebrities’ images.

The tech company on Tuesday said it was using machine learning classifiers to detect online scammers using the image of public figures in ads, as well as imposter accounts, to lure users into websites soliciting personal information, and even money.

“If our systems suspect that an ad may be a scam that contains the image of a public figure at risk for celeb-bait, we will try to use facial recognition technology to compare faces in the ad to the public figure’s Facebook and Instagram profile pictures,” Meta said.

“If we confirm a match and determine the ad is a scam, we’ll block it. We immediately delete any facial data generated from ads for this one-time comparison, regardless of whether our system finds a match, and we don’t use it for any other purpose,” Meta added.

Earlier this month, INQUIRER.net warned readers of fake stories circulating online.

Meta added that early testing with a small group of public figures showed “promising results” to make detection faster and more effective.

The tech company also said it was also testing video selfie verification for users to regain access to their accounts instead of verifying identity by submitting official IDs.

“Scammers are relentless and continuously evolve their tactics to evade detection. We’re just as determined to stay ahead of them and will keep building and testing new technical defenses to strengthen our detection and enforcement capabilities,” Meta said.

“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. We’ll continue to discuss our ongoing investments in this area with regulators, policymakers and other experts.”