Facebook reportedly testing facial recognition feature for account logins

Facial recognition is the new buzzword in tech. After Apple made it the talking point with its Face ID feature on the iPhone X, social networking giant Facebook is said to be testing facial scanning for account logins. The company is working on a feature to help users locked out of their accounts regain access through a face scan. This could be particularly useful in times when a two-factor authentication via SMS is not possible, say on-flight or in a poor-network zone.


The development was first spotted by a social media researcher who passed on a screenshot to The Next Web. Further screenshots have surfaced on social media that reveal Facebook’s upcoming Face Recognition Settings. “To recognize whether you’re in a photo or video, our system compares it with your profile picture, and photos and videos that you’re tagged in. This lets us know when you’re in other photos and videos so we can create better experience,” Facebook states on the panel.

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Facebook has confirmed that it is indeed testing a Face ID feature. “We are testing a new feature for people who want to quickly and easily verify account ownership during the account recovery process. This optional feature is available only on devices you’ve already used to log in. It is another step, alongside two-factor authentication via SMS, that were taking to make sure account owners can confirm their identity,” it told TechCrunch. Facebook has also trained neural networks to identify people by their hair, body shape, and posture. 

While biometric authentication is surely safer than a regular two-factor authentication, it is bound to raise concerns around privacy. Also, facial recognition wouldn’t work for accounts that don’t have a face as its display picture — and that is common as users put up pictures of their kids or pets as display pictures. Additionally, some users disable photo-tagging too. Hence, Facebook would technically be unable to search for images that resemble such users’ faces. Only time will tell how the facial recognition feature fits into such situations. But for now, it seems like an interesting development.

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