Last October, Meta cross the threshold into the realm of facial recognition, piloting an international test of two powerful tools: one to deal with scams exploiting famous faces and another to assist users in recovering their compromised Facebook or Instagram accounts. Today, this testing zone just got bigger by adding yet another important country.

Initially, Meta hit pause on its facial recognition trials in the United Kingdom, but on Wednesday, the company switched gears and inaugurated the tools there as well. Elsewhere, where these innovations are already up and running, Meta is going the extra mile to make the "celebrity bait" protection available to even more people, revealed the firm.

According to Meta, bringing their facial recognition trial to the UK was only possible due to their fruitful interactions with regulatory authorities. Interestingly, the UK has been progressively accepting AI in recent times, even doubling down on its efforts. However, there's still silence concerning the rest of Europe, another pivotal region where Meta hasn't kicked off the facial recognition "test."

"Over the next few weeks, celebrities in the UK can expect to receive in-app notifications, stating they can voluntarily activate the celebrity bait protection that runs on facial recognition technology," Meta mentioned in a statement. The firm additionally announced that both this tool and a fresh "video selfie verification" feature will be optional for all users.

Over the years, Meta has consistently used user data to fine-tune its algorithms. However, when it first unveiled the duo of facial recognition trials in October 2024, Meta assured they would solely be deployed for their stated purposes — tackling scam ads and user authentication.

"Post the one-time comparison, we instantly erase all facial data derived from ads, regardless of whether our system finds a match, and we don’t utilize it for any other objective," Monika Bickert, Meta's VP of content policy stated in a blog post.

In light of Meta going all in on AI, these updates are timely, as the company is not just developing large language models and incorporating AI across its portfolio, but also reportedly has a standalone AI app in the pipeline. Meta has also dialed up its lobbying efforts surrounding this technology, and shared its thoughts on what it deems to be high-risk AI applications.

Given Meta's past experiences, creating tools that address immediate issues on its apps is likely the safest route to achieve acceptance for any new facial recognition features — a field where it hasn't exactly had a smooth journey.

This experimental phase fits the narrative, especially considering Meta's history of criticisms regarding its incapacity to thwart scammers that exploit celebrities' faces to run dubious ad scams.

Over the years, facial recognition has proven to be a prickly arena for Meta. Back in 2024, the firm settled a prolonged lawsuit that accused it of improper biometric data collection associated with its facial recognition technology by shelling out $1.4 billion.

Prior to this incident, in 2021, Facebook decommissioned its 10-year-old facial recognition tool for photos, having faced regulatory and legal issues in several regions. However, intriguingly, they decided to retain a chunk of the technology—the DeepFace model— hinting at its potential integration into future projects.

Well, that future might just be today's suite of products!