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Facebook and Instagram owner Meta will introduce facial recognition technology to try to crack down on scammers who fraudulently use celebrities in their ads.
Elon Musk and personal finance expert Martin Lewis are among the victims of such scams, which usually promote investment schemes and cryptocurrencies.
Mr Lewis previously told BBC Radio 4's Today program that he received “countless” reports every day that his name and face were being used in such scams, and that he was concerned about it. felt “sick”.
Meta already uses an ad review system that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to detect fake celebrity endorsements, but is now looking to augment it with facial recognition technology.
This will work by comparing images from ads flagged as questionable with Facebook or Instagram profile photos of celebrities.
If the image is confirmed to be a match and the ad is a scam, it will be automatically removed.
Meta said “initial tests” of the system had shown “promising results”, so it would now start showing in-app notifications to a wider group of public figures who have been affected by what l It's called “celebrity bait.”
Deepfakes
The issue of celebrity scams has been a long-standing problem for Meta.
It became so prominent in the 2010s that Mr Lewis took legal action against Facebook, but he eventually dropped the case when the tech giant agreed to introduce a button allowing people to report the ads fraudulent.
As well as introducing the button, Facebook also agreed to donate £3 million to Citizens Advice.
But since then, the scams have become more complex and significantly more credible.
They are increasingly powered by so-called deepfake technology, where a computer-generated likeness or realistic video is used to make it appear that the celebrity is endorsing a product or service.
Meta has come under pressure to do something about the growing threat of these ads.
On Sunday, Mr Lewis urged the Government to give Britain's regulator, Ofcom, more powers to tackle fraudulent adverts after a fake interview with Chancellor Rachel Reeves was used to trick people into revealing their banking details.
“Scammers are relentless and continually evolve their tactics in an attempt to evade detection,” Meta agreed.
“We hope that by sharing our approach we can help inform our industry’s defenses against online fraudsters,” he adds.
Social networks
Meta
Meta also announced that it will also use facial recognition technology to help people who find themselves excluded from their social networks.
Currently, unlocking Instagram or Facebook accounts involves uploading an ID or official documents.
But today, video selfies and facial recognition are being tested as a way to prove who a person is and gain access to them more quickly.
User-provided material will be checked against the account's profile picture to see if it matches.
However, the widespread use of facial recognition is controversial: Facebook used it before, before abandoning it in 2021 over concerns about privacy, accuracy and bias.
It now states that video selfies will be encrypted and securely stored and will not be distributed publicly. The facial data generated during the comparison will be deleted after the check.
But the system will not initially be offered in areas where permission from regulators has not yet been obtained, including the UK and EU.
