(Reuters). Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:) Tuesday’s announcement by NASDAQ that it will shut down its facial recognition software, which automatically recognizes users from photos or videos. This is in response to growing social concerns regarding the technology.

Jerome Pesenti from Facebook’s vice president for artificial intelligence, wrote in a blog, “Regulators remain in the process of providing clear rules governing its uses.” We believe it is appropriate to limit facial recognition’s use to just a few cases, despite the uncertainty.

Last week, Meta Platforms Inc renamed itself Meta Platforms Inc. The change will remove the facial recognition templates of over 1 billion users.

A Facebook spokesperson stated that the removal would be done globally by December.

Facebook stated that after face recognition was removed, the auto alt text tool used to create image descriptions for people with visual impairments will no longer be able to include the names of those people in the images, but it will still function.

Face recognition was removed by the largest social media platform in the world. This comes amid criticisms that technology might falsely identify individuals as being part of criminal activities or favour white people over those of other races.

Facebook is also under severe scrutiny by regulators and legislators over its user safety features and wide array of abusive behavior on its platforms.