Only traces of the user interface are currently present, hinting at how the feature may ultimately work. A May version of the app rebrands the feature for users as \u201cConnections\u201d, inviting them to \u201cremember the people you met.\u201d It remains unclear whose faces will be included in the system\u2019s recognition database, how those profiles are created or how many people could ultimately be identifiable through it.<\/p>\n
WIRED shared its findings with two outside security researchers who separately examined the app and reproduced key aspects of the analysis: Cooper Quintin, a security researcher and senior public interest technologist with the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation\u2019s Threat Lab, and an independent security and privacy researcher who goes by the pseudonym Buchodi and has spent more than a decade reverse engineering consumer software and surveillance technologies.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe feature is not yet exposed to consumers but seems nearly ready to go,\u201d says Quintin. \u201cDespite the billions of reasons not to, Meta seems to have created the capacity to turn their customers into a distributed surveillance machine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Buchodi ran additional tests on the recognition pipeline. (Read their technical analysis here<\/a>.) To see if the matching system worked, Buchodi added a single faceprint to the app\u2019s gallery, taken from the deceased French philosopher Michel Foucault. After triggering NameTag with Foucault\u2019s image, the app produced a notification: \u201cPerson recognized.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe main components of a face-recognition feature are already in Meta\u2019s companion app,\u201d Buchodi says. \u201cNot many pieces stand between this and a working feature.\u201d<\/p>\n