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Facebook Facial Recognition Draws EPIC Privacy Concern

by Courtesy

Facebook Facial Recognition Draws EPIC Privacy Concern
By: Clint Boulton
2011-06-16

EPIC and Congressman Edward Markey complained to the Federal Trade Commission that Facebook abused users’ privacy rights with its new facial recognition feature for tagging photos.

Facebook is facing pressure from the Electronic Privacy Information Center, other consumer advocates and Congress members over its use of facial recognition software for its tag suggestions feature in its photo application.

When users upload new photos, Facebook scans them with facial recognition software to match new photos to other photos a user is tagged in. Similar photos are then grouped together, with Facebook suggesting the name of the friend in photos.

Facebook revealed plans to use facial recognition in its tag suggestions feature last December. The original launch was contained to the United States, but the company recently changed its privacy settings to enable the tag suggestions feature more broadly — without explicitly warning users of its intentions.

However, tag suggestions are only made to people when they add new photos to the site, and only friends are suggested. Moreover, all suggestions can be ignored and if someone doesn’t want their name to be suggested to their friends, they can disable the feature in their privacy settings. …more