Facebook May Expand Use Of Facial Recognition To Billion+ Public User Profile Pictures

After Facebook announced updates to its Data Use Policy this week, Reuters is reporting that the social network is considering applying its facial recognition technology to user profile pictures, adding over a billion public profile photos to the site’s facial recognition database. According to Reuters, Facebook leverages the facial recognition technology for its “Tag Suggest” […]

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facebook-logo-featuredAfter Facebook announced updates to its Data Use Policy this week, Reuters is reporting that the social network is considering applying its facial recognition technology to user profile pictures, adding over a billion public profile photos to the site’s facial recognition database.

According to Reuters, Facebook leverages the facial recognition technology for its “Tag Suggest” feature, automatically identifying users in newly uploaded photos by comparing faces in a picture to previous photos where the user was tagged. Facebook told Reuters that expanding its facial recognition technology to profile pictures will improve the site’s “Tag Suggest” feature, making it easier for users to locate photos in which they appear on the network.

“Our goal is to facilitate tagging so that people know when there are photos of them on our service,” said Facebook’s chief privacy officer Erin Egan. Reuters says Egan emphasizes that Facebook users can “opt out” of the Tag Suggest feature, disallowing their profile picture from being included in the site’s facial recognition database.

In light of the recent PRISM program, where US government agencies were charged with collecting user data from sites like Facebook and Google, facial recognition technology has become a controversial topic. Reuters writes that Facebook, along with other sites, insist, “They have never participated in any program giving the government direct access to their computer servers and that they only provide information in response to specific requests, after careful review and as required by law.”

While Egan told Reuters that Facebook does not use facial technology for anything beyond their “Tag Suggest” feature, she did clarify that may not always be the case.

“Can I say that we will never user facial recognition technology for any other purposes? Absolutely not,” said Egan. She did say that should Facebook change its policy, the site would continue to be transparent about how it uses facial recognition technology.


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About the author

Amy Gesenhues
Contributor
Amy Gesenhues was a senior editor for Third Door Media, covering the latest news and updates for Marketing Land, Search Engine Land and MarTech Today. From 2009 to 2012, she was an award-winning syndicated columnist for a number of daily newspapers from New York to Texas. With more than ten years of marketing management experience, she has contributed to a variety of traditional and online publications, including MarketingProfs, SoftwareCEO, and Sales and Marketing Management Magazine. Read more of Amy's articles.

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