Abstract The field of face recognition has recently become a quite popular area of research, which is of great significance to the development of technology. It introduced the definition of face recognition technology and its development process, as well as the technical advantages and application scenarios of the technology. with the development of deep learning, face recognition technology based on deep learning is gradually realized. firstly, the limitations of traditional face recognition technology are pointed out. Then, several popular face recognition methods based on depth learning are analyzed. Finally, this paper introduces the application of deep learning technology in face recognition, summarizes a new deep learning model based on big data, and summarizes and prospects the development of face recognition technology in the future.