
You Can Now Tell Facebook to Delete Its Internal Record of Your Face - Garbage
https://onezero.medium.com/you-can-now-tell-facebook-to-delete-its-internal-record-of-your-face-d1def7f992c1
======
d10
I'll speculate that facebook will never "delete its internal record of your
face" as the title states. They're using misleading words to make this sound
like a significant concession, when it isn't.

Suppose Alice appears in photos with Bob. And that Carol appears in other
photos with the same Bob. Facebook can infer the Alice..Bob..Carol
relationships.

If Bob "opts-out", facebook will still know that Alice appears in photos with
unnamed person, and also that Carol appears with same unnamed person. So
they'll infer the Alice..unnamed person..Carol relationships.

If, hypothetically, facebook offered Bob the option "do not use my face in
your algorithms." Then maybe they wouldn't link Alice and Carol. But all
facebook is offering here is "don't associate my face to my account".

This cleverly gives facebook some cover. Bob might ask facebook, "don't use my
face to surveil my friends", but facebook can say "how could we possibly do
that? We don't associate your face with your account, so we can't associate
your face with your preference, even if we wanted to."

~~~
pesenti
That’s not accurate. If you are not a user or don’t have the FaceRec setting
on, we will not create a Face Template and won’t be able to recognize you in
pictures.

Source/Disclaimer: I work at FB and this feature is managed by my team.

~~~
echelon
> I work at FB and this feature is managed by my team.

How do you feel working at Facebook? Do you feel pressure from your peers on
the outside about the moral compass of the company?

Maybe you can't answer these things if you aren't using a throwaway account,
but I'm very interested in hearing how Facebook employees perceive the company
themselves, as well as how they're treated by company outsiders.

My impression is that a lot of engineers are opposed to how Facebook operates
and that this reputation must make recruiting and retention difficult.

~~~
pesenti
> How do you feel working at Facebook?

See
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19036507](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19036507)
or
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20768607](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20768607)

> Do you feel pressure from your peers on the outside about the moral compass
> of the company?

Pressure is too strong a word. I do get into discussions with friends and
family on the topic.

> My impression is that a lot of engineers are opposed to how Facebook
> operates and that this reputation must make recruiting and retention
> difficult.

That's mostly not accurate. Remember that these engineers can freely express
their opinion internally or question Zuck live every week.

------
eugeniub
This is getting tiring. I have to submit a form to tell Facebook to delete
data about my face. Submit a form to opt out of binding arbitration for each
credit card. Submit a form to avoid being tracked. This whole mess puts a huge
onus on the average internet user, and acts like it's the user's own fault if
they're every movement and action is being tracked by a hundred entities at
once.

~~~
mjevans
I've never had, and intend to never have, an account with Facebook or any of
their services.

Can we please have sane legal defaults like Facebook ONLY having data profiles
for those who have agreed to the creation of such profiles?

~~~
ufmace
Thing about that, Facebook is known to construct "shadow profiles" of people
who don't have normal profiles, just to correlate all of the data they happen
to gather on you from having their tendrils on half the sites on the internet.
It might be better off to create a profile with your info just to turn off as
many things as you can, and not interact with anybody on it.

------
lwansbrough
How do I do this if I’ve already deleted my Facebook profile? I know Facebook
is still holding some data on me because the “that account doesn’t exist” page
it shows when I type in my former account email is subtly different than the
page when I type in an email I know doesn’t exist.

~~~
pesenti
If you are not or no longer are a Facebook user or you do not have the Face
Recognition on, we will not create or store a face template to recognize you.

Source/Disclaimer: I work at FB and this feature is managed by my team.

~~~
mellowdream
I deleted my FB account a few days ago, and reactivated it today (within the
30-day permanent deletion cancel period) to see if I could delete FB's record
of my face data. Like some others in this thread, I couldn't see any option to
do so.

Do I need to wait for this option to be rolled out to my account (and how long
will that take)? Can I delete my account anyway without this option having
shown up? (While ensuring FB doesn't have records of my face?)

------
konart
Of course I can. The question is - will they actually delete it everywhere
inside their data storages or will they just send me a 200 response code.

~~~
reaperducer
And what exactly does "delete" mean? It's removed from production, or it's
also scoured from backups?

~~~
DannyB2
It is deleted, then added to a list of deleted faces.

Just so they can be sure not to re-add it later.

Yeah. That's it! And they're sticking with that story.

~~~
throwaway2048
Sensing another Zuckerberg promise "to do better" in the works already.

~~~
ALittleLight
Has he already apologized for the recent release of a half billion phone
numbers?

~~~
altfredd
Hey, we have just gotten a enormous phone directory for free! Why are you
complaining?

------
MilnerRoute
I can't find the setting to disable this. The EFF says they "have questions"
about how Facebook is implementing this.

"Throughout Facebook’s deliberately vague announcement, it takes great pains
to note that the change applies only to new Facebook users and people who
currently have the “tag suggestions” setting. However, Facebook migrated many,
if not most, existing users from “tag suggestions” to “face recognition” in
December 2017 (see here for Facebook’s explanation of the difference between
tag suggestions and face recognition). That means this safeguard does not
apply to the billions of current Facebook users who have already been moved."

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/09/facebook-changing-
its-...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/09/facebook-changing-its-face-
recognition-settings-we-have-questions)

~~~
noer
The URL when I found it was:
[https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=facerec](https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=facerec)

If that URL doesn't work I went to Settings and there's a tab for "Facial
Recognition" on the left rail. Between "Language and Regions" and
"Notifications"

~~~
MilnerRoute
I really appreciate you posting this.

Just to confirm my experience: when I click on that link, I see "General
Account Settings" (like name, username, contact... Everything that's available
from the first left-hand menu choice.) And no where in that left-hand menu is
there any choice about Face Recognition.

I do have a left-hand menu choice about "Timeline and Tagging" \-- but there's
still nothing there about face recognition.

~~~
noer
Here's what my left hand menu looks like:
[https://imgur.com/a/dFPibMc](https://imgur.com/a/dFPibMc)

I'd guess that it's a feature that's being gradually rolled out to all
accounts.

I originally posted it because I was frustrated that I didn't see a link to
the setting in the article, but I guess I understand why there was no link.

~~~
MilnerRoute
My left-hand menu looks exactly like yours -- but without the "Face
Recognition" choice. (After "Language and Region" my next choice is
"Notifications", with nothing in between.)

Thanks for posting the screenshot.

------
andrerm
This is misleading to the point it's almost propaganda. From Facebooks
announcement [1]

> ... if you’re in a photo and are part of the audience for that post, we’ll
> notify you, even if you haven’t been tagged. You’re in control of your image
> on Facebook and can make choices such as whether to tag yourself, leave
> yourself untagged, or reach out to the person who posted the photo if you
> have concerns about it.

[1] [https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/12/managing-your-
identity-...](https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/12/managing-your-identity-on-
facebook-with-face-recognition-technology/)

~~~
clebio
What the even what. This is double speak.

------
dastx
"We've got all the data we need, you may now opt out" ¯\\(°_o)/¯

------
DannyB2
Shouldn't it be that I have to tell Facebook what they are allowed to keep?

Especially since I have never had and never will have a FB account.

~~~
ineedasername
That's what you think. Your shadow profile is probably there, waiting for you
should you ever claim it.

------
pesenti
More info: [https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/09/update-face-
recognition...](https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/09/update-face-recognition/)

The feature is now opt-in. It is turned off for all new users and for those
who only had the "tag suggestion" setting on.

Disclaimer: I work at Facebook and this feature is managed by my team.

~~~
joeblau
I deleted my facebook account years ago — how do I delete myself?

~~~
pesenti
If you are not a Facebook user or you do not have the Face Recognition on, we
will not create or store a face template to recognize you.

~~~
chinathrow
Is that the truth or will a court later fine your company for lying?

~~~
jrockway
When you ask hypotheticals like this, it comes across as an attack. When you
attack people, they stop showing up to share their unique knowledge and
experience.

~~~
IllogicalLogic
Facebook's chronic underhanded tactics requires one to ask for confirmation.
The onus is on the dishonest party not the victims.

Good that he asked... we all should more.

------
ilikehurdles
What do I have to do to get facebook to delete this after I already deleted my
account 3 years ago?

~~~
wronglebowski
Seconded, I'm in the same boat. I realize attempting to wipe my data from all
the various sources it may be in across the web is futile but I'd still like
to try.

~~~
windexh8er
Until Facebook states they won't store/analyze faces they can't recognize then
everyone who has never had an account or deleted their account are at a
disadvantage.

I've always wondered if COPPA could be used against Facebook with regard to
this. Theoretical situation: I'm a parent and I find an image of my child
(under 13 years of age). Facebook never notified me of they were storing my
child's image. Facebook would argue they didn't know. But Facebook already
scanned the image and likely guessed the child's age - and knew they were
under 13. In that situation Facebook should be required to remove the image
based on the fact they cannot notify the guardian. I realize this would have
severe repercussions to their operational model, but that's also the point.
Or... If I find an image Facebook didn't notify me about - then I'll take that
$42,000 per image.

Seems fair.

------
t3f
>When you opt out of facial recognition on Facebook, the company will delete
your template, meaning it will have no original reference point for your face
and therefore cannot find your face at all.

The details are pretty sparse. It would be nice if they clarified how they
manage black-listing your template ID somewhere but still disconnect it from
your profile. If you opt-ed back in at some point, they need to know to remove
you from that black-list, which might imply there's still some sort of
connection from your profile to a template ID or maybe the generic template
still exists but they're disallowed to associate it to a profile and it's in
some shadow table?

~~~
tsumnia
Plus, just as another layer of "I don't trust this". I have to re-unsubscribe
from AT&T's job search newsletter every few months because of what I assume is
a new wave of recruitment emails being sent from an older mailing list.
Doesn't matter how many times I unsubscribe, that backup will always have my
information on it and that service only refers to that backup.

My only assumption is that Facebook is too big to properly manage that piece
of specific knowledge and will delete it, but I'll still be there somewhere.
Or I'll magically opt back in because of something like Messenger or whatever.
Considering the news about Google circumventing their own GDPR restrictions, I
just assume these companies aren't following through with any of their
promises.

~~~
jefftk
_> I have to re-unsubscribe from AT&T's job search newsletter every few months
because of what I assume is a new wave of recruitment emails being sent from
an older mailing list. Doesn't matter how many times I unsubscribe, that
backup will always have my information on it and that service only refers to
that backup._

That sounds like a violation of the CAN-SPAM act, and you could consider suing
them.

~~~
tsumnia
Yes, but the hassle of deleting their email once every few months isn't enough
to make suing them worth it. Plus, that doesn't really resolve the issue that
requesting to be take off things doesn't actually remove me (the original
concern of these comments)

~~~
jefftk
You might be able to get some money out of them, though

~~~
tsumnia
You seem to be ignoring the rest of the issue entirely.

------
Zelphyr
This is great for the new users it appears to apply to. But what about people
like me? I haven't had a Facebook account in seven years. Yet, I'm not
delusional to believe they don't still have my data (yes, I "deleted" it)
along with my picture. So every time my wife posts a picture with me in it to
Facebook, they know where I am.

------
squarefoot
I still can't use it and won't be able to, probably forever.

I'm not on Facebook and I don't have plans to become part of that thing for
the next two centuries or so, but a lot of people I happen to share the same
geographical coordinates do. They take and upload photos at events thinking
everyone wants to appear in their videos. Now imagine -as someone who strives
every single day to stay away from that platform and all associated things-
playing an instrument at a dinner and realizing there are no less than half
the people there pointing a cellphone at you. How in the Universe can I ask
people I don't ever recall the name not to shoot videos of me, or at least not
put them on Facebook because once they do I can't ask Facebook to delete them
because I don't have a Facebook account?

The real problem here is that I am already somewhere on Facebook since forever
although I firmly refuse to be part of it, and I have no way of telling them
to delete all my data, short of making an account, which would negate
everything I am struggling for. This is crazy.

A while ago I proposed somewhere (probably here, can't recall for sure) a
barcode which if shown (worn?) tells the system used to shoot the video that
the associated human doesn't want to appear, so that the whole person is
deleted from the scene. Now that the random-faces technology has progressed, I
would add some AI that swaps that person with a fake one so that the photo
won't be ruined by an empty area.

In the meantime we could create human readable symbols telling if and how we
want our image to be used and instruct people how to use them, then one day
hopefully if someone posts a photo of me while wearing a patch/shirt/whatever
with a crossed camera, I can force that person to delete the photo or sue the
platform that keeps it online. Of course there should be exceptions for well
known public figures and/or public officers during service (read: the heck I'm
not uploading a photo of say police abuse even if the cop wears a 5 meters
wide photo of a crossed camera!).

~~~
cameronbrown
What infuriates me is when parents do this to other people's children without
asking. It's now just a given you'll be uploaded onto some giant corporations
systems from birth to death.

------
andrewgioia
Can anyone figure out how to actually turn this off? After bouncing around in
Facebook's help docs I found the steps[1] but don't see the option.

Click the down arrow at the top right, then Settings. There _should_ be a
"Face Recognition" item in the left but not for me.

This is so frustrating and part of me thinks they just disable this for a bit
so 90% of people forget.

[1]
[https://www.facebook.com/help/187272841323203](https://www.facebook.com/help/187272841323203)

~~~
ragerino
I checked it in the Android app, and I was able to find it and it was already
deactivated. I remember doing this a while ago. But it was burried in
Facebooks settings. Here is how you can do it on Android.

1\. Click on the menu icon (three horizontal lines) in the top toolbar. 2\.
Scroll down, expand "Settings & Privacy" if not expanded, and click
"Settings". Don't fall for those privacy shortcuts. Facebook will hide a lot
of settings from you. 3\. Scroll down and you should see the " Face
Recognition" entry in the Privacy category.

Hope this helps.

PS: I personally find it lame, that Facebook needs to make it as much
confusing as possible to find those settings.

------
fromthestart
>It’s an assurance that Facebook isn’t actually retaining data that it could
use again someday to recognize your face.

Given fb's history of lying, it's only an assurance that they won't overtly
use such data. No guarantee that they're not still storing it on a server
somewhere, and good luck proving as much.

Also, what does this mean for people without accounts that are being tracked?
I wonder if facial data is collected on them too, after being labeled by
friends.

~~~
dymk
Where has Facebook been caught lying?

They've surely done many things you don't like, but they've not lied about
doing those things.

~~~
jakear
From stallman.org: Facebook made deals for phone and computer manufacturers
including Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Samsung to access data about its useds
and their friends as well. These deals seem to still be operative. [1]

When Zuckerberg testified to Congress, he said Facebook had stopped doing this
years ago [2]. Apparently he lied.

1:
[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/03/technology/fa...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/03/technology/facebook-
device-partners-users-friends-data.html)

2: [https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/06/04/sure-looks-
zuck...](https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/06/04/sure-looks-zuckerberg-
lied-congress-about-user-privacy-new-facebook-data-sharing)

------
Rafuino
I've had this setting disabled for I want to say over a year now. Was I part
of some early pilot or something? I followed the instructions here
([https://www.facebook.com/help/www/187272841323203](https://www.facebook.com/help/www/187272841323203))
and it was already set to "No". What the heck?

------
toss1
FB is known to build profiles of pretty much everyone it encounters, even
vicariously, ostensibly to be able to populate a new account with engaging
info once they actually join.

Can I tell them to delete the records of my face that they keep even though I
don't have an account?

And, of course, in all instances. will they actually expunge it from all
locations in their data-universe?

------
ldayley
How does a person without a facebook account accomplish this though? Even
without an account it’s likely that fb has several dozens of photos of me via
other people’s posts.

------
ThrustVectoring
It'll be extremely difficult for the face-identification algorithm to not run
on your face without remembering what your face looks like. Their algorithm is
probably a two-step process: find where all the faces are in the photograph,
and then attempt to match the found faces to user profiles. It's extremely
probable that every failure-to-match gets logged somewhere, and probably
annotated with extra data. Will Facebook wind up deleting your facial
recognition data only to recreate it without the tie to your profile? It seems
extremely likely, unless they keep some list of "deleted faces" and tell the
match-to-profile algorithm to discard any results from that list. And that
seems very different from actually deleting your face record.

------
flippyhead
Sorry, but... So I don't have to go hunting for it (and get stuck in facebook
land reading updates!) can some one provide a link to the place where this
setting resides? Thank you!

~~~
Chirael
Yes please. I hate articles like this that tell you what Facebook will now
allow you to do... but don't give you the actual link where you could do it
yourself _right now_. Makes me think these articles are actually Facebook PR
which wants to control the narrative on the feature and deliberately not make
it easy to find where to do it.

------
plg
Can I opt out if I'm not a Facebook user? i.e. opt out of having them store
records of my face?

PS don't tell me they don't have records of my face

------
parliament32
This help page[1] claims you can go to Settings > Facial Recognition, but I
don't have that option under Settings...

[1]
[https://www.facebook.com/help/www/187272841323203](https://www.facebook.com/help/www/187272841323203)

------
amflare
Okay, but how will they know if the face they found is yours, and thus should
not be found?

~~~
e12e
I wonder about this too. They say they delete the template (the statistical
model they know is your face). Ok.

So now I register a new fb profile, using a picture of _you_ , opting in to
facial recognition. Now what?

They can't match the picture against your profile, because they've deleted the
template?

------
blackflame7000
And they totally will from most of their archives _wink wink_. Who is really
capable of verifying this actually happens that doesn't also have a vested
interest in Facebook?

------
gnu8
I shouldn’t have to tell Facebook to delete something it should never have had
to begin with. How are we going to force Facebook to stop doing terrible
things forever?

~~~
wlesieutre
The article makes it sound like an ominous surveillance feature with not
justifiable product reasons, so I should point out that this powers beneficial
features like face recognition for image accessibility. Thanks to face
recognition, blind people can know who's in a photo.

[https://www.facebook.com/accessibility/videos/new-face-
face-...](https://www.facebook.com/accessibility/videos/new-face-face-
recognition-features/1628143837229335/)

Remove yourself if you want to, but people should be aware there's also a
useful side of this.

~~~
JohnFen
That there exists useful product reasons is beside the point. The point is
that people who don't want their data to be involved should not have their
data be involved.

~~~
wlesieutre
Yes, it's good that you can opt out now. But I think articles like this are
doing a disservice by glossing over the negative effects of opting out.

People choosing to remove their data from this should be aware that if they
have visually impaired friends on facebook (or even friends of friends,
depending on sharing settings) you will be degrading accessibility features
that they probably use.

And it's great to let people make their own choice about whether they're OK
with Facebook having face recognition of them, but encouraging people to
disable it without at least mentioning that image tags are an accessibility
feature is a dick move.

It's framed as just "this will remove features that _you_ might not care
about," but blind people need the image tags more than you do.

------
laythea
Surely after their AI neural net thingamybob has absorbed your face, FB
doesn't care about deleting your face, as their model has already benefited
from it?

------
ineedasername
In other words, they've trained their models enough that they can now be
ethical about this one particular piece of data.

------
markdown
Is this for the people who haven't already legally prevented FB from using
your face? I fixed this years ago by copypasting a legal message on my FB
account refusing FB this permission. They have no right to use my photo for
any means whatsoever without my express written permission.

------
throwawaywego
Give me physical opt-out. A "robots.txt"/do-not-track for computer
surveillance spiders. Let me wear a necklace or QR code on my shoulder, and
any commercial face tracking software, is required to create a big black
blindspot where my facial micro-expressions used to be.

~~~
stordoff
And then the minute it even isn't slightly visible, Facebook et al will likely
take that as you consenting.

------
b_tterc_p
Despite the headline I don’t see anything about deleting data. Just that it
won’t try to recognize you.

That being said, I went on my profile to check and it was already set to No
(don’t do facial recognition). Is this the default? Or is this actually an old
thing that I disabled a long time ago.

------
Taniwha
So how do I do this if I'm not a facebook user? you can't even contact
facebook by email to tell them to stop sending spam because they've allowed
another user to sign up using your email address - they have no outward facing
public email address

------
candeira
I read this as "You can now 100% confirm to Facebook that, indeed, that is
your face".

------
JohnFen
...and Facebook will tell you it's deleted. But why should anyone believe
them?

------
meddlepal
How do you do this if you no longer have a Facebook account? I am sure they
have my data but I deleted my account several years ago and I don't plan to
reactivate it.

------
gouggoug
Interestingly, I just went into my account and I was already opted-out. Is
this the case for everybody? If so, that's a very surprising move coming from
FB.

------
patient_zero
I can "tell" them. What a farce.

Until the title reads "New Law Criminalizes Sale of Private Data Without
Consent", this crazy train will never stop.

------
nextstep
How can I, someone without a Facebook profile, ask Facebook to delete my
internal profile?

------
DevKoala
I deleted my Facebook account months ago. Does that mean all of the other
records were deleted?

------
orf
Of course they don’t delete it, which is why they know not to automatically
tag you.

------
rootw0rm
okay....so how do you opt-out?

------
falcongod082
You can now tell the Queen of England to make you a Knight!

------
ooklala
Didn’t this happen over a year ago? (in the EU at least)

[https://www.wired.co.uk/article/facebook-facial-
recognition-...](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/facebook-facial-recognition-
opt-out-settings-lawsuit-turn-off-gdpr-eu)

------
apricot
I mean you could always tell Facebook to do whatever.

------
noobdood
"You can now tell Facebook to " $*

Slowly, with me, now:

Hah. Hah. Hah.

------
RyanAF7
uh oh...here comes the facial data leak

------
YeahSureWhyNot
yeah? Zuckerberg promised? suuure

------
munherty
What do they mean by "delete" ? Is this only FB? What about its 279387429
other connectors

