How are we using facial recognition technology to confirm your identity?
To get you back into your account as quickly and easily as possible, we sometimes use facial recognition technology to automate the identity verification process when you submit a selfie or an ID.
How facial recognition technology works
- If we suspect that someone has accessed your account without your permission or if we need to verify that you’re the true account owner, we may ask you to confirm your identity by providing a video selfie or an ID.
- If you choose to continue with facial recognition technology, we will use an automated system to create embeddings from your video selfie or from the photo on your ID. An embedding is a numerical value representing the visual characteristics of your face. We will also create embeddings from the photos you've uploaded on your Facebook or Instagram profiles, including any previous profile photos on Facebook. We then compare those embeddings against each other to confirm that they belong to the same person.
- If there is a match, then it usually takes 1 minute to confirm your identity.
- If our automated system can’t confirm a match, or if you choose not to use facial recognition technology, your selfie or ID may go through manual review, or you may be asked to confirm your identity another way.
What happens to your facial recognition data
- We use these embeddings only to help confirm your identity, and delete them as soon as we finish comparing your video selfie or ID photo to photos on your profile. This means that we delete the embeddings regardless of whether the comparison finds a match or not.
- We may need to regenerate embeddings from your video selfie or ID photo and photos on your profile to ensure this technology is working properly. These embeddings will only be used for this purpose and will be deleted immediately afterwards.
- Each time you choose to use facial recognition technology on your video selfie or ID, you will be asked for a separate consent.
Facial recognition data may be considered a biometric identifier or biometric information under the laws of your jurisdiction.
You can learn more about how our use of facial recognition technology affects people other than public figures and high-profile individuals here.
To get you back into your account as quickly and easily as possible, we sometimes use facial recognition technology to automate the identity verification process when you submit a selfie.
How facial recognition technology works
- If we suspect that someone has accessed your account without your permission or if we need to verify that you’re the true account owner, we may ask you to confirm your identity by providing a video selfie.
- If you choose to continue with facial recognition technology, we will use an automated system to create embeddings from your video selfie. An embedding is a numerical value representing the visual characteristics of your face. We will also create embeddings from the photos you've uploaded on your Facebook or Instagram profiles, including any previous profile photos on Facebook. We then compare those embeddings against each other to confirm that they belong to the same person.
- If there is a match, then it usually takes 1 minute to confirm your identity.
- If our automated system can’t confirm a match, or if you choose not to use facial recognition technology, your selfie may go through manual review, or you may be asked to confirm your identity another way.
What happens to your facial recognition data
- We use these embeddings only to help confirm your identity, and delete them as soon as we finish comparing your video selfie to photos on your profile. This means that we delete the embeddings regardless of whether the comparison finds a match or not.
- We may need to regenerate embeddings from your video selfie and photos on your profile to ensure this technology is working properly. These embeddings will only be used for this purpose and will be deleted immediately afterwards.
- Each time you choose to use facial recognition technology on your video selfie, you will be asked for a separate consent.
Facial recognition data may be considered a biometric identifier or biometric information under the laws of your jurisdiction.
You can learn more about how our use of facial recognition technology affects people other than public figures and high-profile individuals here.