Privacy is becoming more of a concern as facial recognition technology advances and is integrated even more extensively into things we use all the time such as our smartphones and social media platforms.
But, in a huge victory for privacy advocates, Facebook is deciding to lessen its aggressive pursuit of facial recognition tech in that the company is getting rid of its policy of scanning pictures uploaded to the platform by default. That means that new users who sign up for a Facebook account have to “opt-in” to the platform. Critics point out that most people who have signed up for Facebook have done so and that this provision might be better for future generations of users than it is for those of us who have already had our mug uploaded to the company’s database.
How the feature works is that Facebook scans all of the pictures that people upload to its service and then, if it recognizes you in one of them, it allows you to tag yourself in it or even report the image if it is somehow inappropriate. Anyone that has used Facebook has probably noticed this super creepy feature that automatically suggest friends to tag in a picture.
Naturally, you can disable the facial recognition feature in Facebook’s settings as, like we said, this opt-in system will only apply to people that sign up for the service going forward.
What do you think? Do you find Facebook’s facial recognition invasive? What’s your opinion on facial recognition technology in general? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
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[DPReview]
2 Comments
I like the fact that Facebook seems to be taking steps to resolve the privacy issues.
It is promising! Thanks for the comment Kent! 🙂