 "Facebook wants to add your profile picture to its facial recognition database")
In a controversial move, social networking giant Facebook is now considering adding your profile picture into its facial recognition database. This development comes as part of a move to expand the scope of Facebook’s facial recognition technology.
Facebook proposed this move as an update to its governing documents. In a blog post, Facebook placed forward two legal documents of the social networking website—the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and the Data Use Policy.
Privacy woes for Facebook
As a change to the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, Facebook is mulling over how it is going to use your profile pictures better. Currently, Facebook can give you tagging suggestions for images that you’ve already been tagged on. Now, it wants to analyse your profile pictures so it can observe your images better and dole out suggestions in an improved fashion.
The feature has been frequently spoken about and is something that most users are wary about. The facial recognition feature is something of a pet project with Facebook and the service was keen on pushing it down everyone’s throats before concerns about privacy came up. After a brief while of not tweaking facial recognition settings, Facebook seems to be on its way again.
Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Erin Egan said that adding members’ public profile photos would give users better control over their personal information, by making it easier to identify posted photos in which they appear “Our goal is to facilitate tagging so that people know when there are photos of them on our service,” she said.
The good thing about this feature is that if you think it affects your privacy or you’re uncomfortable with it, you will be given a choice to opt out of the feature. Once you show Facebook you’re not interested, your images will not be included in the facial recognition database.
Besides this, Facebook is also making efforts to better explain its Data Use Policy. While the service has not elaborated upon it, this section refers to the $20 million class action settlement based on the row about the service employing user data alongside Sponsored Stories.
Facebook is giving seven days for users to submit any feedback as part of its policy. Even while it might not end up paying any attention to the feedback given to them about these changes, it makes sense in letting Facebook know if you have an issue with any of these proposed changes.
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