Facebook Now Using Facial Recognition Technology.

[Iron_Lion]

(Reuters) - Facebook has quietly expanded the availability of technology to automatically identify people in photos, renewing concerns about the privacy practices of the world's top social networking service.


The feature, which Facebook automatically enabled for Facebook users, has been expanded from the United States to "most countries", Facebook said on its official blog on Tuesday.

Its "Tag Suggestions" feature uses facial recognition technology to speed up the process of labeling friends and acquaintances that appear in photos posted on Facebook.

The company's rollout of the technology has raised eyebrows in some circles. Internet security consultant firm Sophos published a post on its company blog on Tuesday saying that many Facebook users are reporting that the site has enabled the facial recognition option in the last few days without giving users any notice.

"Yet again, it feels like Facebook is eroding the online privacy of its users by stealth," wrote Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant at Sophos.

Facebook, which announced in December that it planned to introduce the service in the United States, acknowledged on Tuesday that the feature was in fact now more widely available.

When asked about the Sophos blog post, Facebook said in an emailed statement that "we should have been more clear with people during the roll-out process when this became available to them."

The statement noted that the photo-tagging suggestions are only made when new photos are added to Facebook, that only friends are suggested and that users can disable the feature in their privacy settings.

The company did not respond to requests for further comment.

 

[Swampdankv2]

Yup. As if we didnt see that coming. And of course it has been disguised as some great new feature available for users. All the more reason to watch very carefully where you get your pic taken.

 

[Slim Pickens]

What really disturbs me about the whole thing,is that Facebook decides that they are going to do something that will quite possibly piss everyone off....then instead of giving you the option of "opting in",they just do it and then you have to opt out.....They have given (actually sold) their members information on several occassions,and when confronted they act like it was a mistake and they wouldnt do it again.


Squrew Facebook.

 

[gaiusmarius]

i am so glad i never fell for that whole face-crook crap. i knew it would end up being one massive privacy breach, even before they added all the newer security betrayals of their users. what a bunch of crooks. i will never join that shit!

 

[Yes_I_Am]

so even if your out and about in a pub in the background of a pic they can identifie you, wtf.

 

[Zen Master]

I dont have a facebook and never will. A lot of my friends do though and you can still get tagged in a photo even if you dont have a FB, it'll just be without a link to a page (right?). So eventually you get tagged a few times by a couple friends and then it can potentially automatically do so from there on?

so when this data gold mine is accessed for whatever reasons (and you know it will be), 'they' (leo/hacker/etc.etc) can get timestamps of who was where at what time with who, all without the persons knowledge. Not to mention a profile of millions of people and millions of their friends, down to what they had for dinner last night and what they tweeted while taking a shit 15 minutes ago.

way cool. fuck this new age techno spying shit.

 

[Noobian]

The devil

 

[supermanlives]

i will be the last person on earth to join twitter or facebook.

 

[darkhorse]

its the modern day confesion booth, but God only knows what the dark priests are going to do with all the info.

 

[Iron_Lion]

I worry about the children whose stupid parents post their pictures on the internet the day they pop out of the twat. This is the first generation of people that will grow up on the internet from day one, and give away the rights to their face before they are even old enough to consent and as they grow Im sure their proud parents will continue to post updated pics.