well, this move comes amidst what by all accounts is a massive headache for the tech giant, already embroiled in a pr storm surrounding leaked documents. the facial recognition feature has been heavily criticized by privacy advocates, concerned it could be misused. it's also been the subject of a class action lawsuit. in illinois, facebook settled for $650 million after accusations it had collected millions of facial photos without proper consent, violating illinois state law. yesterday in a blog post, the company's vice president of artificial intelligence cited a lack of regulation as a reason to stop this kind of data collection, saying, quote, we need to weigh the positive use cases for facial recognition against growing societal concerns, especially as regulators have yet to provide clear rules. the post also noting this change will represent one of the largest shifts in facial recognition usage in the technology's history, adding the system will be shut down in the coming weeks.