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Google: No Facial Recognition Apps Will be Approved For Google Glass

Danny Sullivan on May 31, 2013 at 9:59 pm

Google Glass launched at the 2012 Google I/O event.

Think Google Glass would be great if it could help you look at someone and automatically bring up information about them? Looks like you’ll have to do it the hard way and recognize them yourself. Google’s put up a statement saying it won’t approve any facial recognition apps.

Google posted on Google+ about this, saying:

We’ve been listening closely to you, and many have expressed both interest and concern around the possibilities of facial recognition in Glass.
As Google has said for several years, we won’t add facial recognition features to our products without having strong privacy protections in place.
With that in mind, we won’t be approving any facial recognition Glassware at this time.

The Next Web also spotted a clause now in the developer guidelines and policies for Glass about this:

Don’t use the camera or microphone to cross-reference and immediately present personal information identifying anyone other than the user, including use cases such as facial recognition and voice print. Applications that do this will not be approved at this time.

About The Author

Danny Sullivan

Danny Sullivan was a journalist and analyst who covered the digital and search marketing space from 1996 through 2017. He was also a cofounder of Third Door Media, which publishes Search Engine Land, Marketing Land, MarTech Today and produces the SMX: Search Marketing Expo and MarTech events. He retired from journalism and Third Door Media in June 2017. You can learn more about him on his personal site & blog He can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.