Facebook’s Civil Rights Audit That being said, Facebook does not restrict law enforcement’s ability (or anyone’s ability) to access the public information users post on Facebook, including public posts, photos, profiles, likes, and friend networks — so long as law enforcement personnel do not misrepresent their identities in doing so. Further, Facebook’s current policy does not prohibit law enforcement from posting on police or other law enforcement department Facebook pages images of or allegations about alleged suspects, persons of interest, arrestees, or people the department thinks might have connections to criminal or gang organizations — including those who have not been convicted (or even charged) with anything. (The only limitation on law enforcement’s ability to use Facebook this way are Facebook’s other policies, such as those prohibiting the posting of personal identifying information like social security numbers or home addresses, or Facebook’s bullying and harassment policy.) C. Facial Recognition Technology Facebook has several products and features that rely on facial recognition technology. One example is Facebook’s “Photo Review” feature that is part of the Face Recognition setting. When that setting is turned on, a user is notified if they appear in photos uploaded by other users, even if they are not tagged, as long as the user has permission to see the photo based on the photo’s privacy setting. This gives the user the option to tag themselves in the photo, leave the photo as is, reach out to the person who posted the photo or report the photo if the user has concerns. Facial recognition also allows Facebook to describe photos to people who use screen-reading assistive technology. In 2017 and 2018, Facebook sent a notice to all users explaining the face recognition setting, how it works, and how users can enable or disable the setting. New users receive a similar notice. Facebook also includes in its Help Center an explanation of how the company uses their face profile or “template” and how users can turn that setting on or off. According to Facebook, facial recognition is disabled by default, and users would have to affirmatively turn the feature on in order for the technology to be activated. If a user turns the facial recognition setting off, Facebook automatically deletes the face template it has which allows Facebook to recognize that user based on images. (That said, where a user has already been tagged in a photo, turning off facial recognition does not untag the photo.) In addition to on-platform uses, the civil rights community has sought clarity on whether/how Facebook makes facial recognition technology or data available off platform to government agencies, law enforcement entities, immigration officials, or private companies. Facebook maintains that it does not share facial recognition information with third parties, nor does it sell or provide its facial recognition technology to other entities. Facebook further indicates that it built its facial recognition technology to be unique to Facebook, meaning that even if someone were to gain access to the data, they would not be able to use it with other facial recognition systems because it (intentionally) does not work with other systems. New or proposed uses of facial recognition are required to go through the privacy review described above and obtain approval before they can be launched. Because facial recognition relies on algorithms, it necessarily raises the same questions of bias, fairness, and discrimination associated with AI more broadly. Facebook reports that it has been testing the algorithms that power its facial recognition system for accuracy when applied to people of different ages and genders since before 2017. 86