Facebook Tackles Face-Recognition Privacy Concern

KOMPAS.com - Facebook has made it easier for users to opt out of its controversial facial-recognition technology for photographs, an effort to address concerns that it had violated consumers' privacy.

The deployment of "Tag Suggestions" technology - designed to speed up the process of labeling friends in photos - had renewed concerns about how the world's largest social network with 750 million members handles privacy.

The technology scans newly uploaded photos, compares faces in those snapshots with previous pictures, then tries to match faces and suggest name tags. When a match is found, Facebook alerts the person uploading the photos and invites them to "tag", or identify, the person in the photo.

US Attorney General for Connecticut George Jepsen said in a letter to Facebook last month that it compromised consumers' rights to privacy by analysing faces in photographs posted on the website, then cataloging them.

Facebook has since met with Jepsen, and this month began running ads on users' home pages telling them about the feature and allowing them to count themselves out of its use entirely. Should users opt out, any facial recognition data that had been collected will be deleted.

"Facebook has made significant changes that will provide better service and greater privacy protection to its users, not only in Connecticut, but across the country," Jepsen said in a statement. "The company has been cooperative and diligent in its response."

Facebook, which verified that those ads have run, has said the feature is available in most countries. Automated photo-tagging suggestions are made only when new photos are added, only friends are suggested and users can disable the feature in their privacy settings, the company has said.

"People across the country using Facebook will be more aware of our personalised privacy settings, and how they can be used to benefit their experience on the site," Tim Sparapani, director of public policy at Facebook, said. "We hope that people on Facebook will find the results to be helpful and useful."

You in or out?

While other photo software and online services such as Google's Picasa and Apple's iPhoto use facial recognition technology, the use of the technique on an internet network like Facebook raises thorny issues.