Facebook Disables Face Recognition In EU 96
SquarePixel writes "Facebook has disabled face recognition features on its site for all new European users. The move follows privacy recommendations made by the Irish Data Protection Commissioner. Tag Suggest information has been turned off for new users, and Facebook plans to delete the information for existing EU users by October 15th. 'The DPC says today’s report (PDF) is the result of evaluations it made through the first half of 2012 and on-site at Facebook’s HQ in Dublin over the course of two days in May and four in July. The DPC says FB has made just about all of the improvements it requested in five key areas: better transparency for the user in how their data is handled; user control over settings; more clarity on the retention periods for the deletion of personal data, and users getting more control over deleting things; an improvement in how users can access their personal data; and the ability of Facebook to be able to better track how they are complying with data protection requirements.'"
Europe knows what's going on (Score:5, Informative)
Other countries should get a clue before they lose what privacy they have left. It's not an obsolete concept just because the execs of the companies that stand to profit most from your personal info say so. Facial recognition technology is one of the biggest threats to privacy.
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Re:Europe knows what's going on (Score:4, Insightful)
Other countries should get a clue before they lose what privacy they have left. It's not an obsolete concept just because the execs of the companies that stand to profit most from your personal info say so. Facial recognition technology is one of the biggest threats to privacy.
So... all of the US Facebook account DO have the face recognition tech running non-stop? That's good to know.
Facebook doesn't exactly announce all of the crap they do to fuck with your privacy. Slashdot is one of the places that keeps me informed.
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Yes and they check the faces against a database supplied by the US-authorities.
But I believe the image services of Yahoo, Bing and Google do the same.
Re:Europe knows what's going on (Score:5, Insightful)
Other countries should get a clue before they lose what privacy they have left.
Yet in many EU countries it is illegal to walk down the street if you shield your face from public view.
As an American, I think holding the EU up as a model for personal freedom is ridiculous.
Re:Europe knows what's going on (Score:5, Informative)
Good thing [justia.com] the US [thinkprogress.org] has no such laws [anapsid.org]
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Re:Europe knows what's going on (Score:4, Informative)
Can you list these countries? I call bullshit.
Obscuring your face in public is illegal in France [wikipedia.org] and Belgium [wikipedia.org]. In some other countries, including Italy and Spain, there is no national law, but it is illegal in many localities.
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They usually make special little exemptions for the religious because they're special snowflakes. Everyone else is fucked, though, even if they come up with some made-up religion of their own (which makes just as much sense as any other). Probably.
Either ban it for everyone or no one.
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Yep, there was a big debate about the burka ban in France.
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What you meant by 'many EU countries' was in fact France.
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It's not illegal in Belgium
Yes it is. Please read the link I provided, or you can use Google to find hundreds of other references.
Italy or Spain.
Italy and Spain have local bans. For instance, obscuring your face in public is illegal in Barcelona [reuters.com].
Re:Europe knows what's going on (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not illegal in Belgium
Yes it is. Please read the link I provided, or you can use Google to find hundreds of other references.
It was a ban on burkas [bbc.co.uk]. Yes, it's ridiculous, but it is not illegal to wear masks in Belgium. It was a ban on religious clothing that obscures a face, particularly forced upon women. But the amount of burkas used in Belgium is probably at a minimum.
Italy or Spain.
Italy and Spain have local bans. For instance, obscuring your face in public is illegal in Barcelona [reuters.com].
Actually, it's only illegal in public buildings, such as markets and libraries, which your link itself lists quite clearly. You can still walk outside while having your face obscured.
So basically, your "many EU countries" is "France". Belgium's law will likely have little consequence, and it seems that the Barcelona law is a protection of public buildings. Not that Turkey is the pedestal of civil rights, but they also had a similar ban as Barcelona (until at least very recently).
Denmark also have a ban on masks, but only during demonstrations and other large crowds. The usual freedom was previously abused heavily by activists to destroy property rather than actual demonstrate. The rationale is that if you are really interested in your message, you will have no issue showing your face at a public demonstration.
But most of these laws seems to be a form of Islamophobia than an actual crackdown on civil liberties, which seems to be collateral damage. There was even talk about banning burkas in Denmark, until politicians realised only 5 people in the whole country wore them, and they were ethnic Danes who had converted to Islam. The cases might even be similar in most other EU countries. Like the Swiss ban on Minarets. Ridiculous.
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Nowadays it's not a 'mask' but a fashion statement. It's a facekini.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/fashion/article-2193902/Ready-facekini-Hideous-face-lycra-masks-cramp-style-fair-complexions-China.html [dailymail.co.uk]
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Heh. I live in the next country along to France, and I find that any French-related difficulties I might be concerned with can be avoided completely by simply not going to France!
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Re:Europe knows what's going on (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet in many EU countries it is illegal to walk down the street if you shield your face from public view.
As an American, I think holding the EU up as a model for personal freedom is ridiculous.
Well, don't know about personal freedom (although having lived both in the US and Europe, I feet more free in Europe), but on the internet privacy topic there are good things coming from the EU. Not taking those good things as a model would be kind of stupid... Just like judging the whole topic of personal freedom on a single law is kind of stupid.
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In the Urinated States of America, Pi is 3 and one (France? yes, no-one doubts that France is having a bit of a freedom crisis at the moment) is many.
Explains corporation law, anyway.
Meanwhile, in the "freedom from religion" US, Judeo-Christian law means you will get arrested for walking around on a beach showing the tits that "God" gave you - not to mention the unholy penis and the dirty, dirty vagina. Or have you become so indocrinated that you think there is some objective, secular reason why a guy/girl
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It is illegal to wear a mask in Cleveland, Ohio. (perhaps only in a parade, or mass gathering, etc) This law was passed to prevent the KKK from holding rallies there and being able to hide.
Re:Europe knows what's going on (Score:5, Insightful)
The EU isn't about personal freedom. On the spectrum of 'liberty equality and brotherhood' (liberte, egalite fraternite) europe and canada have landed on the side of Equality before the others, the US 'liberty' first, and China and Japan are more in the 'brotherhood' as in service to the country first.
As an American, I think holding the EU up as a model for personal freedom is ridiculous.
As a canadian I think holding up the united states a model of anything worth emulating is ridiculous. About the only thing you can say you do better than we do is bomb people, and half the time that does more harm than good.
See the problem? We all look at the primary responsibility of the role of government and the people differently. So we don't try and emulate each other, we should steal good ideas as they come up, and reject bad ones. The EU is trying to bottle up facebooks privacy invasion service, that's good. They supported the americans in torturing people, that's bad, but they're coming around to prosecuting that, which is good. The US has a relatively large federal government, in a single currency, the EU has almost no 'federal' government and a hodge podge of currencies but the Euro area is a single currency without a state, you can guess which is working better based on what is happening in Spain, Italy, and Greece.
We also have recognize where our situations are different. Police in England don't carry guns, but there's also a lot less gun crime in england than in the US, so following the US model would be bad, and the US following the UK model wouldn't work either (unless you could magically make millions of guns appear or disappear of course).
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"Yet in many EU countries it is illegal to walk down the street if you shield your face from public view.
As an American, I think holding the EU up as a model for personal freedom is ridiculous."
I suggest you try walking up and down in front of a bank in the US wearing a balaclava.
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Yet in many EU countries it is illegal to walk down the street if you shield your face from public view.
Who told you that nonsense?
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It was entirely unintentional, I'll be more careful about that.
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Billions prolly an underestimate over the millenia (Score:4, Insightful)
Ok, Europe's solved a relatively minor problem hostorically -- evil corporations tracking you.
Now you need to tackle the other 99.99% of the historical problem, billions-of-needless-deathswise, and stop government from facial recognition, and license plate recognition, and so on and automated assembly into tracking databases.
Re:Billions prolly an underestimate over the mille (Score:5, Insightful)
My thoughts exactly. I really don't care about a big evil corporation knowing where I've been, my religion, what I weigh, who I have sex with, etc. If anything, the more they know about me, the more likely that they will make products I want to buy.
However, the government knowing all of those things is actually something to be concerned about.
I think it is quite a marketing feat by the EU: Make it appear that they are strong defenders of privacy by being ruthless in protecting the privacy of consumers, while implementing far worse privacy breaches on their own citizens.
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If anything, the more they know about me, the more likely that they will make products I want to buy.
The more they know about you, the more they can manipulate you to create wants you never had before.
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I really don't care about a big evil corporation knowing where I've been, my religion, what I weigh, who I have sex with, etc. If anything, the more they know about me, the more likely that they will make products I want to buy.
However, the government knowing all of those things is actually something to be concerned about.
Funny, my view is the exact opposite. I'm shocked if I lose a private document and the government archives don't have a backup. On the other hand, I'm endlessly annoyed by all kinds of merchants trying to get under my skin all the time.
My government is not out to get me. The corporations are.
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My thoughts exactly. I really don't care about a big evil corporation knowing where I've been, my religion, what I weigh, who I have sex with, etc. If anything, the more they know about me, the more likely that they will make products I want to buy.
However, the government knowing all of those things is actually something to be concerned about.
The biggest problems seem to be 1) disclosure of information and 2) malicious action based on the information. In a democratic society, both companies and government have to follow the law, and there are serious repercussions if they don't.
The potential for (1) is about the same for both, but the actions in (2) are worse for the government: they can put you in jail, while the worst thing companies can do is to collude to raise prices just for you or deny you some service. We're not discussing the actions, h
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by being ruthless in protecting the privacy of consumers, while implementing far worse privacy breaches on their own citizens.
Care to point some out?
Seems you are better informed than me, which privacy breaches are the european governments planning?
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Doing, not planning:
http://www.justfuckinggoogleit.com/search.pl?query=european+citizen+surveillance [justfuckinggoogleit.com]
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Before refering other people to google you should google yourself.
The search terms you proposed don't bring up anything relevant, YFYI.
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Just Moved to Dublin, Ireland (Score:5, Funny)
I just logged in to Facebook and changed my home to Dublin, Ireland.
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If I logged into Facebook and changed my location would that work?
In theory, it should. They could use IP geolocation, but that would be pretty noisy and probably would not satisfy the regulators. If you are a Dubliner on a business trip overseas or using a VPN through another continent, do you lose your legal protections?
Regardless, though, suppose a few hundred thousand people log in and do this over the next few days. Even if it doesn't foil this lens of the panopticon directly, it does send a pretty str
Europe or only EU? (Score:1)
The article isn't very clear about this either.
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More than just the EU (Score:2)
No, it also applies in the countries that are part of the European Economic Area (EEA). That's the EU and most of EFTA. We're a few small countries, but we're not members of the EU. The FTA means the same laws apply within the EEA (27+3).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Economic_Area [wikipedia.org]
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More than one meaning (Score:2)
That's both true and just part of the whole truth.
While it may be legally required in the EU, it may also be required in the EEA (EU+3). Even then it is often applied in all of the European countries (EU/EEA/non-EU), it's easier for companies that way (see Facebook).
What is Facebook good for, again? (Score:3, Insightful)
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Single point of publication. You publish content, and hundreds or thousands of your subscribers can view it.
Gee...full of yourself much? :o)
Or you can announce that you are getting a divorce by changing your status from Married to Single, and you don't have to tell all your friends and family, thus allowing you to ignore painful questions that you will have a hard time dodging if asked face-to-face.
Or, you can waste time fielding the endless concerned calls and emails from friends and family when, after forgetting to log yourself out of FB (*perhaps* due to a few too many bubbly beverages), one of your jerkwad friends starts editing your relationship status for you..."No mom, I did not break up with Jane. No, I am not, nor have I ever been in a committed relationship with John. My 'friends' are just dicks."
True (but hilarious, at least to those watching) story.
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It's fine and dandy to rebel against it, but like it or not Facebook provides a service (centralizing communication, sharing and event planing) and all they charge is your consent to farm your information. Failing to recognize Facebook's utilities in a sorry attempt at wit doesn't make you cool - it makes you a hipster.
I don't like facebook, I don't have an account. But seriously - Facebook is good for people who want social interaction at the expense of privacy. No more, no less.
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A social life.
... because it's clearly not possible to have a social life without using Facebook, I guess?
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If you don't have, never had an account on facebook, you don't know hoe facebook works. ... and you are wrong anyway.
That alone makes your point invalid
Hint: I have some friends on facebook.
I publish a foto from a party in a pub.
You are on that foto.
Everyone who knows you gets a message: new photo with SilentStaid published. (Your girlfriend assumed you where at your parents at that time, did she not?)
I for my part did not sign for that when I 'joined' facebook.
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Google Image (Score:1)
Julian Assange was right on Facebook... (Score:4, Informative)
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People just fade out of systems when something better comes along. I think the majority of those that actively delete their profiles on their way out do have things that they do not want misused. You may ascribe that to being slashdot geeks who wised up, or to having had trouble that showed them real life drama follows facebook activity or whatever. But it takes a pretty strong force stopping the inertia of convenience and addiction they are enjoying there. Even closing my slashdot account and being prevent
Was there EVER really privacy? (Score:3)
We have the right to record things in public. That means we can freely follow and track other people. Pretty soon everyone with be walking around with a camera on their person. The camera will tie into a computer and will be able to take clues from the environment as well as to record everything that happens within a two day period. Where did I leave my keys? Just rewind...
So are we going to take away the right to record in public? What happens when devices will be able to record directly from our brain activity? Is everyone going to have the equivalent of copyright to their own images? Is everyone going to be forced to forget everyone else and submit to memory wipe everyday as a result of a DMCA like forget notification?
When it comes to location and tracking on that point we have to surrender. There is no way to put that genie back in the bottle. And to me when anyone in the pubic can do it I see no reason the government couldn't do it as well. That cat is simply out of the bag.
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Have a look at this then http://europe-v-facebook.org/EN/Data_Pool/data_pool.html [europe-v-facebook.org]
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You have the right to record in public, for your own private usage. ....
You have no right to publish your recordings without the consent of the people you have recorded.
But that is basically what facebook is doing
There are other problems (Score:2)
As I've always been suspicious of Facebook-style sites I would never do such.
What made me really worried is the in the mail named persons I could get in touch with would I set up an account, a whole string of my private and business acquaintances all over the world were listed, how the HELL did they amass this on a non-member???
Because I'm pretty sure my sister has not listed this string of acquaintances that are not even likely to k
its called cross checking (Score:2)
on of the things Facebook likes to do is Yoink your address book/contacts list from your email service so i would bet that somebody on that list allowed the address book yoink and then got X folks to sign up and some of them allowed the Yoink (Facebook at this stage cross references and dedupes the addresses). Now that it has gotten to YOU Facebook has noticed that %list% has YOU listed.
Until they get caught (Score:1)