Facebook Opting Users into Facial Recognition

Posted 06/07/2011 at 2:40pm | by Ryan Whitwam

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It wouldn’t be another week without some sort of Facebook privacy snafu. This time it’s all about facial recognition, and Facebook’s apparent assumption that you wanted it turned on. The facial recognition technology was announced last year, but did not roll out to all users. Now the option is turning on for many users around the world, and it defaults to “enabled”.

The facial recognition engine is a little disconcerting, but it’s not being used in a particularly creepy way. When your friends are tagging people in their photos, the facial recognition system will suggest your name if it feels like you are in the image. Facebook is not automatically tagging you in photos; although that would be technically possible.

The person tagged in a photo does not have the option to approve the tags. Rather, you have the option to remove tags off yourself, or just turn off tagging altogether. If you want to check your facial recognition setting, go to you settings, then to “Customize settings”, then look under "Things others share", and edit the settings of “Suggest photos of me”. Was yours enabled?