San Francisco — In a surprising move to appease the European Union, social-networking giant has disabled its facial-recognition tool that suggests when registered users could be tagged in photographs uploaded to its website. The move follows an assessment of Facebook’s efforts to implement changes recommended by the Data Protection Commissioner of Ireland last year.
The move comes as Facebook, which was the target of an audit by Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner (DPC), was under pressure to enforce a number of changes in Europe, essentially dealing with privacy and security issues. Last December, Facebook had promised to be more transparent about its photo-tagging feature and to implement the changes outlined in the audit document in order to comply with European regulations.
One major hurdle was facial recognition tagging, which prompts your Facebook friends to “tag” or identify you in photos in which you appear. Besides, Facebook also told European users that they would receive more alerts about how the facial-recognition feature works, so they could decide to use it or not.
“As our regulator in Europe, the Irish Office of the Data Protection Commissioner is constantly working with us to ensure that we keep improving on the high standards of control that we have built into our existing tools,” a Facebook spokesman said in a statement.
The spokesman further stated, “This audit is part of an ongoing process of oversight, and we are pleased that, as the Data Protection Commissioner said, the latest announcement is confirmation that we are not only compliant with European data protection law but we have gone beyond some of their initial recommendations and are fully committed to best practice in data protection compliance.
In fact, the DPC did not particularly call for the program to be completely removed, Commissioner Billy Hawkes is happy with the end result.
“I am particularly impressed in relation to the approach [Facebook Ireland] has decided to adopt on the tag suggest/facial recognition feature by in fact agreeing to go beyond our initial recommendations, in light of developments since then, in order to achieve the best practice,” Hawkes said in a statement.
Apart from praising the social media giant, the audit cites improved transparency around how data is handled, better user control over Facebook settings, greater clarity about data retention and deletion capabilities, and enhanced user data access rights. However, a few features are due for further review apparently before the social network can officially pass the audit.
Going forward, a scan of the audit document reveals that the DPC has received a “satisfactory response” from Facebook on virtually all of the pressing issues. Hawkes also noted that facial recognition feature for all new users in the EU has been turned off and that it will be disabled for existing users by Oct. 15.
Gary Davis, deputy DPC commissioner, said that the discussions and negotiations, often robust on both sides, were constructive, carrying the collective goal of compliance with data protection requirements.
“There were a number of items on which progress was not fully forward as we had anticipated and we have set a deadline of 4 weeks for these matters to be brought to a satisfactory conclusion,” Davis said in a statement. “It is also obvious that ongoing engagement with the company will be necessary as it continues to bring forward new ways of serving advertising to users and retaining users on the site.
Nevertheless, facial recognition continues to be a difficult technology blunder for Internet companies due to privacy concerns. Last year, when Facebook began using facial recognition to prompt users to identify friends in photos, it did so by default, forcing users uncomfortable with the idea to opt out. Privacy advocates, researchers, and lawmakers promptly voiced concerns that eventually led to the present suspension of the company’s facial recognition tool in Europe.
Also, last year, the social media hub encountered similar troubles when German data protection officials requested that Facebook disable is facial-recognition software and delete any previously stored data. Officials reopened their investigation earlier this month, claiming that the data protection commissioner in Hamburg had not been able to come to an agreement with the social network.