Protecting Celebrity Faces: Facial Recognition Technology to Be Used Only for Intended Purpose After Prior Adequacy Review
Personal Information Commission: "Preventing Privacy Violations in Advance"
Meta, the operator of Facebook, is launching a service in Korea to block impersonation ads and accounts that use celebrity photos for stock investment advertisements and similar purposes. On May 29, the Personal Information Protection Commission announced that it had applied a prior adequacy review system to this service to address concerns about potential privacy violations.
Consent and Withdrawal Screen for Facebook's Facial Recognition Technology to Block Impersonation Ads and Accounts. Provided by the Personal Information Protection Commission
The Personal Information Protection Commission held a general meeting the previous day and deliberated and resolved the results of the prior adequacy review of Meta's "Celebrity Impersonation Ad and Account Blocking Service."
Previously, Meta applied for a prior adequacy review to the Commission before launching this service in Korea, which aims to prevent damage caused by scam ads and accounts impersonating celebrities.
If a celebrity separately consents to the use of facial recognition technology, Meta will register them as a protected subject, extract and store facial feature points (numerical values representing the visual characteristics of the face), and delete this information if the celebrity withdraws consent.
Meta extracts facial feature points from faces detected in images identified as impersonation ads or accounts, and compares them with the actual facial feature points of the celebrity. If there is a match, the relevant ad or account can be deleted or blocked, and, if necessary, human intervention or an objection process may be initiated.
In this process, Meta has agreed, through consultation with the Commission, to process facial feature points extracted from detected faces only once for the purpose of comparison with celebrities and to immediately delete them afterward.
Facial recognition technology will not be used for any purpose other than verifying whether the person in question is the same as the celebrity. Meta will also submit evidence such as server logs to the Commission to demonstrate this after the fact.
Additionally, Meta will ensure that users are clearly informed in the privacy policy and related documents that facial photos from ad images or public profiles may be processed once for the purpose of detecting impersonation ads and accounts, if necessary.
The Commission plans to require Meta to submit supporting documents to verify that it is actually implementing the agreed measures once the service is launched.
A representative from the Commission stated, "The prior adequacy review system is intended to effectively resolve legal uncertainties in the field of new industries," adding, "It also helps to proactively prevent the risk of privacy violations from new services, and we plan to actively operate it going forward."
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