[alxlaz]

This doesn't sound like the use case that the parent comment was describing. Parent comment was about what is inferred if you are a user and no longer have FaceRec setting on, but used to have it on at one point, and opted out. That's why the speculation was that "facebook will never "delete its internal record of your face" as the title states."

Edit: not to be snarky, because I'm pretty sure that wasn't your intention, but it sounded like you were doing exactly this:

> This cleverly gives facebook some cover. Bob might ask facebook, "don't use my face to surveil my friends", but facebook can say "how could we possibly do that? We don't associate your face with your account, so we can't associate your face with your preference, even if we wanted to."

Everyone understands how opting out works and what it means (I mean, some of your bosses pretend they don't, but even they do). Of course you can't create a template when the setting that disables template creation is on. The question is what do you do with data that you inferred in the past, and what kind of privacy can be expected if you opt out of a feature after it's been used. That's particularly important given this industry's history of opting in for you.

[pesenti]

The problem is that language is ambiguous and it’s important to be accurate. I do believe that intent wise, it answers the question the way you would prefer. Let me explain.

In the case you describe, Facebook no longer creates a Face Template, that is some kind of ML model of your face that could be used to recognize it or identify that you are the same person appearing across new pictures.

But I can’t say Facebook no longer has a record of your face. It still has some pictures, uploaded by your friends, where you appear. It won’t know that it's you OR and if your friends upload two pictures where you appear, it won't know that the same person is in both unless they tag you manually (which they can only do if you are user and authorize them - but that's a different setting).

[d10]

Thanks for taking time to reply to comments here.

If I understand correctly, when facebook detects faces, it does something like...

    compare face to all Face Templates
    if match
        associate picture and face with matched user
        (maybe also update Face Template of matched user)
    else
        discard data structures created during compare
        (maybe mark face as "already compared")

If the data is truly discarded, great! I'm glad if my earlier speculation is not what happens.