Facial Recognition on Facebook
Since I don't do much on Facebook, I hadn't noticed this new feature that's been around for a few months now (since about April?). Every time someone gets tagged in a photo posted on Facebook, that info is added to its facial recognition database. And then the next time you upload a batch of photos, that software scans through to see if it recognizes anyone and suggests names of your friends to tag. True, it saves you time and makes it that much easier to tag your friends. But...they just rolled out the feature without any announcement or warning.
In any case, given Facebook's annoying habit of just doing things and apologizing for it later, I didn't want to be added to the facial recognition database since I didn't trust them not to do something else with that information later. And yet I also liked the convenience of being able to easily access any photos I had been tagged in. So I went back through the roughly 60 photos I was tagged in and untagged myself, and retagged faceless portions of the photo. Also went through my profile photos and deleted ones that showed my face clearly. I changed my profile photo to one with a tiny photo of me. Eventually, the facial recognition software will get better and presumably be able to find me in the photo anyhow, but in the meantime, I'll hide as much as I can.
You can ask Facebook not to include you in the list of names it will suggest to your friends when they tag photos.
- Go to Account > Account Settings
- Click on the word 'manage' to the right of Privacy
- Click on 'customize settings' near the bottom left of the grid
- Scroll down to the "Things others share" section
- To the right of "Suggest photos of me to friends: When photos look like me, suggest my name", click on "Edit Settings" button
- Choose "Disabled" and then click "Okay"
To read more about this:
- Facebook starts rolling out facial recognition feature
- Facebook facial recognition could get creepy
- Why Facebook's facial recognition is creepy
- EU to probe Facebook over facial recognition feature
- Google won't dabble in facial recognition search system
In any case, given Facebook's annoying habit of just doing things and apologizing for it later, I didn't want to be added to the facial recognition database since I didn't trust them not to do something else with that information later. And yet I also liked the convenience of being able to easily access any photos I had been tagged in. So I went back through the roughly 60 photos I was tagged in and untagged myself, and retagged faceless portions of the photo. Also went through my profile photos and deleted ones that showed my face clearly. I changed my profile photo to one with a tiny photo of me. Eventually, the facial recognition software will get better and presumably be able to find me in the photo anyhow, but in the meantime, I'll hide as much as I can.
You can ask Facebook not to include you in the list of names it will suggest to your friends when they tag photos.
- Go to Account > Account Settings
- Click on the word 'manage' to the right of Privacy
- Click on 'customize settings' near the bottom left of the grid
- Scroll down to the "Things others share" section
- To the right of "Suggest photos of me to friends: When photos look like me, suggest my name", click on "Edit Settings" button
- Choose "Disabled" and then click "Okay"
To read more about this:
- Facebook starts rolling out facial recognition feature
- Facebook facial recognition could get creepy
- Why Facebook's facial recognition is creepy
- EU to probe Facebook over facial recognition feature
- Google won't dabble in facial recognition search system