Facebook Re-enables Tag Suggestions Face-Recognition Feature In the US 98
An anonymous reader writes "Facebook has brought back its photo Tag Suggestions feature to the U.S. after temporarily suspending it last year to make some technical improvements. Facebook says it has re-enabled it so that its users can use facial recognition 'to help them easily identify a friend in a photo and share that content with them.' Facebook first rolled out the face recognition feature across the U.S. in late 2010. The company eventually pushed photo Tag Suggestions to other countries in June 2011, but in the US there was quite a backlash. Yet Facebook doesn't appear to have made any privacy changes to the feature: it's still on by default."
Re:I guess all those natives were right (Score:5, Informative)
Except that it's not. People can, and will, tag you in a photo without your general awareness. I believe you can even tag people without an account.
Re:I guess all those natives were right (Score:5, Informative)
But Facebook has already admitted to creating "shadow accounts" for people who have not opted in. They still track their behavior through like buttons around the internet unless you surf with noscript, etc.They still try to learn faces, habits, etc. and they also sell the information.
Re:I guess all those natives were right (Score:5, Informative)
It goes far, far beyond even what you're thinking:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2187801/Were-watching-The-camera-recognise-Facebook-picture-time-walk-shop.html [dailymail.co.uk]
Facebook is putting their own cameras in public with built in facial recognition software. They will track everywhere you go, what you do while you're there, what you buy, what you eat, what you look at and don't buy. Every single thing you do will be logged in their databases, and then sold to... well... pretty much everyone. How much do you want to bet their biggest customer will be the federal government?
It appears that Orwell was off by about 30 years when he wrote 1984.