The company, which last week renamed itself Meta Platforms Inc, said it will also delete existing face scan data belonging to more than 1 billion users.
More than one-third of the app's daily active users have reportedly opted into the face recognition setting, Jerome Pesenti, vice president of artificial intelligence at Facebook noted in a blog post Tuesday.
"Regulators are still in the process of providing a clear set of rules governing its use," Pesenti said. "Amid this ongoing uncertainty, we believe that limiting the use of facial recognition to a narrow set of use cases is appropriate."
The tech industry has faced intense backlash over the past few years by critics who feel that the use of face recognition could compromise privacy, target marginalized groups and normalize intrusive surveillance.
The social media giant, which has long been under scrutiny from regulators and lawmakers over user safety, privacy and a wide range of failures on its platform, has more recently faced increased criticism after whistleblower Frances Haugen leaked internal documents in which she said proved the company put profit before user safety.
Facebook will now be limited to helping users gain access to their locked accounts or unlock a personal device, the company detailed in the Tuesday post. "We will ensure people have transparency and control over whether they are automatically recognized," the release outlined.
The policy change will take place globally and is expected to be complete by December.