Facebook is ending use of facial recognition software, the company said Tuesday, a major move by a Silicon Valley giant to step away from the controversial tech.

In a blog post, the social media company said that it made the decision after “careful consideration,” by weighing the trade-offs between the technology’s promising potential and the concerns that it has sparked around the world.

“The many specific instances where facial recognition can be helpful need to be weighed against growing concerns about the use of this technology as a whole,” Jerome Pesenti, the company’s vice president for artificial intelligence wrote in a blog post. “There are many concerns about the place of facial recognition technology in society, and regulators are still in the process of providing a clear set of rules governing its use. Amid this ongoing uncertainty, we believe that limiting the use of facial recognition to a narrow set of use cases is appropriate.”

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Facial recognition cameras have been banned by at least a dozen U.S. cities, including Boston and San Francisco, according to the advocacy group Surveillance Technology Oversight Project. This month the European Parliament called for a ban on police use of facial recognition in public places….

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