Facebook using Facial Recognition to help you get your account back and stop celebrity scams

The company that owns Facebook – Meta – is turning to existing Facial Recognition technology to help average users get their accounts back, and at the same time help detect scam ads featuring high profile Aussies without their consent.

Back in the day Facebook would be able to detect your face within photos your friends uploaded so you could be tagged, or have a suggestion that you be tagged. However they shut that program down. David Agranovich, Meta’s Director of Security Policy told EFTM that in 2021 they stopped using the system “in part because of debates around where facial recognition technology fit within society and the regulatory landscapes surrounding its use”

That technology lay dormant waiting for a use, and today Meta announced that it would be used in two key ways.

Firstly, to help you get your account back should it be compromised and you are unable to access it. In this instance you will be able to upload a video selfie which Facebook will use to verify your identity against the profile pictures on the account.

So let’s say you try to get into Facebook and can’t. Some how your access is gone, perhaps your account has been hacked, or perhaps you’ve just lost your password.

The existing verification processes will continue to exist, but an additional layer will now be added. You’ll be asked to upload a Selfie video, that data will be used to build face data to match against the Profile Pictures on your account and if there’s a match – you’re back in!

As a potential protection for all of us, Facebook will take the profile photos of high profile celebrities to use Facial Recognition to match against any potential celeb-bait scam ads being uploaded to Facebook.

Around 50,000 high profile accounts will be included in the first group of this. Each will receive a notification within the Facebook app allowing them to opt out should they choose, but once active their Profile image will be used to help detect fake celebrity endorsement videos.

These videos use high profile people to sell scams like crypto scams or investment scams. Karl, Kochie, Tracy Grimshaw – you name it, they’ve used an Aussie celebrity. They’ve also used wealthy Australians as the “Faces” of their ads, tricking vulnerable Aussies into handing over money – thinking they too can be as rich as Twiggy Forrest or Gina Rinehart.

In theory, this Facial Recognition program will block these ads before they are ever seen by any Facebook user. That’s a good thing.

Chairman of Hancock Prospecting Gina Rinehart AO told EFTM “I have been urging action on this for several years. Elon Musk’s platform has managed to almost eradicate the scamming problem, so why not Facebook? They have taken too long and done too little to address this. Facebook has made money in advertising revenue while enabling Australians to be scammed and suffer. Apologies aren’t very helpful, but sending money Facebook has received to those who they have helped cause suffering to would be a helpful start.” 

Dr Andrew Forrest AO though still has pending legal action in California where he is suing Meta over the unauthorised use of his image in these very scams.

Forrest is also pushing for Meta and other social media companies to be forced to be “based” in Australia – and thus fall under our jurisdiction and laws.

In the mean time, Dr Forrest’s senior legal counsel Simon Clarke told EFTM “Facebook purchased a world-leading facial recognition company 12 years ago – they could have adopted this technology then, well before the epidemic of celebrity scams started.

Whilst genuine attempts to stop fraudulent ads online are welcome, one has to wonder why they are doing this now?”

We won’t know how well these protections will work, but they come into effect later this year.

For their part, Meta say they don’t want the scam revenue, David Agranovich, Meta’s Director of Security Policy telling EFTM “If someone gets scammed on Facebook, they’re not going to have a good experience on Facebook and they’re not going to want to stay on Facebook.

He also noted that “I also want to really be clear that this isn’t ad revenue that we want. So we’ll continue investing. We’ve invested $5 billion last year in integrity efforts to try and get ahead of these types of security threats.”