Facebook has an intention to use facial recognition technology to warn users every time when photos with their images are posted on this social media platform. Apple has released the trigger by using facial recognition technology in their new iPhone X – it seems that soon each. Still, it is only a presumption of future layout and nowadays this technology is well underway.
One of the widely discussed topics today is a statement of Facebook authorities that they are going to implement facial recognition. One of the distinctive features of this innovation is that you will be notified about every untagged photo with your image shared on Facebook. Still, citizens of Canada and the European Union should not be worried about this new feature as it violates legislation of private information.
Why can it be useful?
Facebook authorities claim that they consider it a sound solution to the creation of fake accounts when scammers use images of other people to steal their identity and post something using their name. Thus users may be sure that they are one and only people who can upload and use pictures of themselves. In such a way you decide what pictures of yourself will appear on Facebook and in overall have more control over your photos and media files.
Why are privacy legislators against this innovation?
One of the biggest issues connected with facial recognition on Facebook is lack of information about the ways of collecting data on Facebook.
According to AilidhCallander, legal officer at Privacy International, there are many questions about the Facebook’s privacy settings. There is no guarantee that each and every user of this mega-popular social media platform knows and understands all privacy settings as they are really complicated and in some cases uncertain. No one knows for sure how this platform processes sensitive users’ data and implementation of new technology will add more legal and ethical complications.
In addition, we have no idea what sequences facial recognition may have in future, but in terms of Facebook, it will definitely increase its range of powers over profiles of users. And it already has too much of it.
In the European Union, privacy legislators started some fresh trials against Facebook: they accuse Facebook of collecting personal data from users using third-party sources.
Legal authorities in France forbidden WhatsApp (its owner is Facebook, by the way) to share user’s information with Facebook without their definite acknowledgment and agreement.
Due to the fact that similar technology was implemented to Facebook features in 2010 to identify people’s faces on the photos by analyzing pixels of the image, we can predict that new feature may appear in newer versions of this social media platform really soon. The only thing required is a new template for every user face that will analyze and compare new and already uploaded photos.
Still, it will be possible to disable this feature in privacy settings of your account.