In an embodiment, a user equipment (UE) recognizes a set of faces within a set of media files stored on the UE using facial recognition. The UE identifies a set of prevalent faces based on a set of criteria including a prevalence of one or more faces among the set of media files. The UE scans real-time media using facial recognition to determine whether any prevalent faces from the set of prevalent faces are present in the real-time media. The UE performs an action based on whether the scanning detects any prevalent faces from the set of prevalent faces in the real-time media. By way of example, the action may include adding one or more enhancement effects to the real-time media, authorizing a communicative operation to proceed, authorizing access to the UE, or any combination thereof.