Wednesday, June 08, 2011

Facebook's facial recognition system should help users control their privacy (but doesn't)

Facebook is edging back into the privacy spotlight with the expected global roll-out of assisted tagging of photos using facial recognition. The service scans uploaded photos for faces and suggests tags for the people in them. (See: Facebook's Latest Privacy Settings Shadiness Invades Your Drunk Pics - Gizmodo.)

What I'd like to see is the service being used in reverse: alert me if someone posts a photo of me on Facebook. If it can help someone tag me, it can surely recognize me in untagged photos and give me a heads' up. Just a thought of using the technology to let users control (or at least know about) others posting photos of them.

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