San Francisco — Facial recognition, all marvelously innovative twenty-first century application, creeps some people out in a big way. Popular social media network Facebook ruffled feathers last month after it activated its facial recognition feature by default. Now, the company has started running ads to guide users on how to opt out of a controversial facial-recognition feature for photographs after Connecticut Atty. Gen. George Jepsen raised privacy concerns.
Earlier this year, social media networking site Facebook implemented a facial recognition solution apparently to help people “tag” their photographs better. Now, the company is seeking to revert this by running ads showing users how to turn the feature off — though it is still turned on by default.
The application in question is called “Tag Suggestions” — designed to accelerate the process of labeling friends in photos — had renewed concerns about how the world’s largest social network with 750 million members handles privacy.
Here is how the facial-recognition technology works: Whenever you are provided the opportunity to tag groups of your friends in an album, the application scans newly uploaded photos, compares faces in those snapshots with previous pictures, then Facebook will use facial recognition technology, and tries to match faces on previously tagged photos, to suggest the name you should tag a friend with. The feature is turned on by default, and you must change your privacy settings to opt out of it.
Well, not everybody preferred the convenience. Privacy groups complained, and Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen came calling, sending a letter to the social media leader Facebook last month stating that it compromised consumers’ rights to privacy by analyzing faces in photographs posted on the website, then cataloging them.
Facebook has since met with Jepsen, and this month initiated the ads on users’ home pages (shown below) informing 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 on Tuesday. “The company has been cooperative and diligent in its response.”
Facebook, which confirmed that those ads have run, has said the feature is available in most countries. The company also said that it will make the function easier to turn off for people who feel it is just a little too Jason Bourne for their Facebook profile.
“People across the country glued to Facebook will be more aware of our personalized privacy settings, and how they can be used to benefit their experience on the site,” said Tim Sparapani, director of public policy at Facebook. “We hope that people on Facebook will find the results to be helpful and useful.”
Image Credit: (Los Angeles Times)
Surprisingly, with lack of information about the expanded roll-out of the feature had sparked concerns among privacy activists, who argue it should be up to users to allow it. Other group of privacy groups also had filed their objections with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission requesting an inquiry.
Furthermore, the system also prompted questions about which personally identifiable information — such as email addresses — could become associated with photos in Facebook’s database.
“Although this measure would not entirely stop fraudulent pages from being created, it will have a significant impact on reducing the amount of time they are active,” the attorney general said.