Facebook Facial Recognition Raises New Privacy Concerns

c0lo writes "Now might be a good time to check your Facebook privacy settings as many Facebook users are reporting that the site has enabled the face recognition in the last few days without giving users any notice. Once again, Facebook seems to be sharing personal information by default, instead on users having to 'opt-in'. Some other comments and an interesting reaction from Google and how to get around/disable it."

Comments

How This Happens:

[causality]

Facebook Admin 1: It's like they'll just keep coming back, keep using our services, no matter what we do to them.

Facebook Admin 2: Strange. Might as well take advantage of it while it lasts. Let's share more of their data by default then.

Re:How This Happens:

[itchythebear]

Facebook Admin 3: Hey check it out, I'm gonna reset itchythebear's notification settings again!

Re:How This Happens:

[SirAstral]

This is proof that you either do not work in IT or you are at the bottom of the totem pole. Admins don't make very many decisions. Admins find problems and fix them after they have approval from their managers. I have yet worked for a company that has let their Admins make a decision anywhere that big on their own.

This was an IN YOUR FACE managerial action!

On a side note, it also proves why people are stupid and perfectly explains why everyone keeps electing liars into office. After a couple hundred years of recorded modern history nothing new is under the sun. Politicians can flat out tell their followers that they are not taking bribes with $100 bills falling out of their stuffed pockets and the followers believe.

Yeehaw!!!!

Re:How This Happens:

[causality]

This is proof that you either do not work in IT or you are at the bottom of the totem pole.

If you want to nitpick, I have the perfect solution. Copy my previous post into a text editor. Substitute "Manager" for "Admin". Now you have your own perfect copy and can move on to the point I was making about their userbase.

Re:How This Happens:

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

You don't know how right you are.
Check out these IM's from Zuckerberg himself:

Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard

Zuck: Just ask.

Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS

[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?

Zuck: People just submitted it.

Zuck: I don't know why.

Zuck: They "trust me"

Zuck: Dumb fucks.

Re:How This Happens:

[AmiMoJo]

They have already apologised for it: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13693791

My bet is they planned to just turn it on and apologise later because it would still be more profitable than trying to get everyone to switch it on voluntarily. Also some great free publicity for their new feature.

Re:How This Happens:

[SirAstral]

That works for me! but you have to admit, nitpicking is entertaining!

Re:How This Happens:

[__aamnbm3774]

Facebook Admin 4: Dammit Jackie Chan is in a lot of photographs!!

Re:How This Happens:

[causality]

That works for me! but you have to admit, nitpicking is entertaining!

Hah. I won't deny having done it myself, though it's more appropriate on some occasions than it is on others.

Re:How This Happens:

[improfane]

I quit Facebook ages ago. If GP's quote from Zuckerberg doesn't convince you there are plenty of reasons to not use Facebook.

I predicted facial recognition being used for nefarious purposes so it's no surprise to me.

Re:How This Happens:

[Stregano]

Here is another quote from that article "Mark really does believe very much in transparency and the vision of an open society and open world, and so he wants to push people that way. I think he also understands that the way to get there is to give people granular control and comfort. He hopes you'll get more open, and he's kind of happy to help you get there. So for him, it's more of a means to an end. For me, I'm not as sure." See, I would not mind everything being open, but the issue here is that Zuck has openly admitted to selling off personal information. What we need is a Mark Zuckerberg site out there somewhere that says everything about him. I am talking full name (which we know anyway), work number, cell number, home phone number, address, license plate numbers, everything. He wants an "open world" so we need to start with the person that wants it so bad.

just replace all your photos with this one

[FudRucker]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/aa/GrouchonoseglassesSPK.jpg/800px-GrouchonoseglassesSPK.jpg

Re:just replace all your photos with this one

[Cro Magnon]

I'm seriously tempted to imitate that congressman. "Yes, that's me. Just not the face".

And the downside is?

[paro12]

I get that once again Facebook has opted people into a new feature, but I'm not sure I get what all the anger is about. As far as I can tell, all this does is allow people who you have already accepted as friends to make it easier to tag their photos... Please somebody explain the downside to me. Its not like the same people couldn't have tagged you anyway, they just would have had to do it manually. I know I for one am excited by this since it makes the process of uploading pictures that much quicker.

Re:And the downside is?

[SirAstral]

How about because no matter how benign you believe some piece of information is, should you NOT have the right to dictate how its is used?

Just saying!!!

Re:And the downside is?

[second_coming]

The correct way of implementing this would be the next time you log in it asks whether it is ok to turn this feature on (with a proper explanation of the pros and cons of doing so). That way the average user of Facebook would be able to make an informed decision as to whether they want it on or off.

Re:And the downside is?

[gnick]

Once you've voluntarily handed that data to Facebook, then no, you don't get to dictate how it's used. Check the EULA. Hate to play devil's advocate, but that's the way it works, sorry. Even if somebody else shares data that bears your exact likeness, your issue is with the person that shared it, not Facebook. I'm not a huge FB fan, but I'm not sure they're stepping outside their bounds here, even though it feels uncomfortable.

Just saying!!!

Re:And the downside is?

[QuasiSteve]

But facebook can already do that - this isn't related to what facebook may or may not be doing behind the scenes.

Any third party with facial recognition software can also do this, but they'll need access to the people's profiles first.

And that's where a major change may be. Say you 'friend' a certain festival organizer because hey, if you friend them, you can keep updated on developments, or you get a discount, or whatever.
So you go to that festival, you have a good time, you also - unfortunately - get shitfaced.
The festival organizer takes pictures during the event, and posts them online.
Suddenly, you're not just some random guy in a festival picture that, albeit not impossible to find, requires a certain level of effort. No, now you're a tagged guy, and one needs but click through to get to your profile.

Now, yes.. you -chose- to friend the festival organizers., and by going to the festival you, implicitly or explicitly, agreed to photos of the festival to be used in publication, and so forth and so on.
The question is, did you knowingly and willingly also allow them to - automatically or otherwise - tag you in those photos?
The "knowingly" would certainly need scrutinizing, as the article seems to imply that facebook enabled by default and didn't particular let you know (I'm sure it can be found somewhere and you're supposed to check that every 10 minutes for whatever consent-who-needs-consent change they implemented this time) - and with it, the "willingly" part.

Re:And the downside is?

[gstoddart]

I get that once again Facebook has opted people into a new feature, but I'm not sure I get what all the anger is about.

So, let me give you a thought experiment.

Say I don't have a Facebook account now (which I don't). But, say, Facebook has turned on facial recognition for all of the existing users (which they have).

So, this weekend if I go downtown to where all of the bars and nightlife are, and I start snapping pictures of people doing various things. Quietly, and unobtrusively mind you.

Now, say I create a facebook account with false profile information, solely so I can upload pictures of people I don't know doing various (and possibly stupid) things. You're no longer some random, mostly anonymous guy in a picture which could have been anywhere ... you're Bob from Detroit. And that guy with the crack pipe is your friend Dave and he's got an outstanding warrant.

By Facebook opting you in to having facial recognition done on you ... how many random people I have never met would be covered by them doing facial recognition on my pictures and associating them with you?

They opted you into something which potentially has fairly broad privacy implications. And, since they have it, the governments might subpoena them for the underlying data so they can feed it into their own system that keep track of citizens (and, they'll make sure Facebook doesn't tell anyone).

Is my example somewhat contrived and a little extreme? Absolutely. Do I think it's a plausible scenario? Sadly, yes.

The point is, they enable a lot of information gathering about people that can happen without any knowledge or consent. Which is what Facebook does every time they add a new feature. And, which is why I won't use Facebook.

Re:And the downside is?

[CharlyFoxtrot]

You can still remove tags apparently. What they are doing is using technology that makes something 95% of their users are doing easier, namely uploading pictures and then tagging all their friends in it. I don't see the problem.

Re:And the downside is?

[paro12]

So, this weekend if I go downtown to where all of the bars and nightlife are, and I start snapping pictures of people doing various things. Quietly, and unobtrusively mind you.

Now, say I create a facebook account with false profile information, solely so I can upload pictures of people I don't know doing various (and possibly stupid) things. You're no longer some random, mostly anonymous guy in a picture which could have been anywhere ... you're Bob from Detroit. And that guy with the crack pipe is your friend Dave and he's got an outstanding warrant.

If this is the case, then yes I have a huge problem with it. But thats not the way facebook works (yet)...By my reading, it will work as with most other aspects of Facebook. If you have set it up so only friends can view your profile information, pictures, etc. then in only those peoples uploads will you be autotagged. If you allow friends of friends, or groups you belong to to see your information then those peoples uploads will contain your data, etc.

Re:And the downside is?

[infolation]

The answer is facepaint.

Re:And the downside is?

[gstoddart]

If this is the case, then yes I have a huge problem with it. But thats not the way facebook works (yet)

Well, given all of the news coverage from Facebook over the last few years ... I simply don't trust them to not suddenly make this information public in another few months. Not a little. They have a repeated pattern of deciding all of your information should be public ... the solution is to give them nothing.

And, really, it would be naive to think they haven't done it in the background and even if they haven't (yet) decided to show information to un-linked persons ... when the DHS shows up to them with a subpoena and a picture of someone and says "give us everything you have on this and if you tell anybody you go to jail".

Even the governments who claim to be bastions of freedom and democracy (I think we all know who I mean) have been shady about this kind of stuff. So, you'll forgive me if I have no trust whatsoever for Facebook in this regard.

Hell, didn't Google just decide not to roll out facial recognition because it opened up too many privacy issues?

Regardless of what it looks like to a given user, there's likely far more information sitting on Facebook's servers than they'll admit to. I think someone should start stalking Zuckerburg and his family and friends to be sure as much of their private information is made public .. that's more or less what they're doing to everyone else.

Re:And the downside is?

[SirAstral]

I agree with you, I was only trying to explain to the other poster that despite agreeing to the EULA that no one reads because they can't be bothered to do, people still are going to want to make that decision for themselves.

Even if 80% of the people want to do something they are still going to want to make the decision for them self instead of a suit. It's basic human nature.

Remember the housing bubble and they called the lender "Predatory"? Well they should have read their contract and because there are so many idiots in the world we all get to pay for it. I do not use FB period, nor any other social site because I want to own my property and I will NOT give them that power. I own my PC and all the data on it, but I do not own my Cell Phone because they want to control it to nickel and dime me every chance they get. Therefore I store nothing personal on my mobile devices other than Names and #'s because that is already public info by virtue of placing a call.

Re:And the downside is?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Facebook allows you to remove you name from tags. It sends me an email when someone tags me and I then go remove the tag. I don't get many notifications of this because most people don't seem to bother doing the tags. However if the tags are automatically offered to people, then I will get more notifications and have to do more work to go delete the tags. So, I turned the feature off a couple of weeks ago when it first showed up in the profile.

Re:And the downside is?

[teh kurisu]

By Facebook opting you in to having facial recognition done on you ... how many random people I have never met would be covered by them doing facial recognition on my pictures and associating them with you?

None, because presumably none of them are friends with you.

Typical Slashdot knee-jerk reaction.

Re:And the downside is?

[gstoddart]

None, because presumably none of them are friends with you.

Typical Slashdot knee-jerk reaction.

How so? Just because they're not my friends, doesn't mean that the facial recognition won't attempt to assign whatever token or ID to a given face it's going to do.

They've already done the recognition at that point, and it's very likely if it matches anybody in their database, that record is present.

They may not show it to me, but it's been done. It's not like the algorithm is going to say "well, I'm only going to compare this face to faces in your group of friends".

Based on some actual knowledge of this, can you say that it won't be possible to match random people from a picture of a crowd? Or are you merely going to trust that it doesn't, and that even if it does, they wouldn't ever do that? Given the number of people with Facebook accounts, you could probably start taking random crowd pics and the technique would likely start generating hits ... even if they won't display them to me, behind the scenes I would be completely unsurprised if some part of the machine goes "bing" and says "hey, that's Alice from over here" and quietly makes a note of it.

I may be paranoid ... but you may be naive.

Re:And the downside is?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except you cannot tag anyone unless they are already your friend, even with the new facial recognition upgrade.

So... again, what's the problem?

Re:And the downside is?

[Anonymous Coward]

I get that once again Facebook has opted people into a new feature, but I'm not sure I get what all the anger is about.

So, let me give you a thought experiment.

Say I don't have a Facebook account now (which I don't). But, say, Facebook has turned on facial recognition for all of the existing users (which they have).

So, this weekend if I go downtown to where all of the bars and nightlife are, and I start snapping pictures of people doing various things. Quietly, and unobtrusively mind you.

Now, say I create a facebook account with false profile information, solely so I can upload pictures of people I don't know doing various (and possibly stupid) things. You're no longer some random, mostly anonymous guy in a picture which could have been anywhere ... you're Bob from Detroit. And that guy with the crack pipe is your friend Dave and he's got an outstanding warrant.

By Facebook opting you in to having facial recognition done on you ... how many random people I have never met would be covered by them doing facial recognition on my pictures and associating them with you?

You're definitely overestimating the capabilities of current facial recognition technology. There is no way for them to sort through EVERY facebook user and figure out who was in that picture you snapped at some night club. What it can do, and what it does, is go through your list of friends and compare the faces in the pictures you took to pictures they have already posted and automatically tags them.

Once again: This only works for your already existing friends and greatly simplifies the process of tagging your newly uploaded pictures. No real change in privacy here. Get over it.

Re:And the downside is?

[b4dc0d3r]

It's not like the algorithm is going to say "well, I'm only going to compare this face to faces in your group of friends".

And you know this because you wrote the algorithm? The intent is to make tagging your friends easier. I find it hard to believe it would compare every user it has rather than just the subset which are your friends.

It could certainly be applied in the way you think it is, and might be in the future, but you can't put an assertion like that one out here as support for your paranoia. Especially when it is counter-intuitive and ignores the purpose of the feature.

Re:And the downside is?

[gstoddart]

And you know this because you wrote the algorithm?

I know this as best as I can because one of the links in TFS says so.

Facebook's more than 500 million users have been automatically included in the database, but the company is allowing each person to choose whether to be identified by toggling a pane in the account's privacy settings.

The tool would still scan that person's face and figure out who it is, but it won't display that information. People can still manually tag friends.

The linked article could be talking out of their ass ... but I'm not making up assertions to support my own paranoia. I'm commenting on the story as written -- I R'd TFA, and that's what I got out of it.

Do you have a link which indicates that they won't do the facial recognition except outside of your list of Facebook friends?

Re:And the downside is?

[Niggle]

Actually, Facebook allows you to remove you name from tags.

Question: Do you believe that the tag is actually removed or that it is merely not displayed any more.

I'd like to believe it's the former, but suspect it's the latter. Meaning that those tags can be re-instated or sold to anybody with a large enough cheque book at any point. Similarly, I suspect the facial recognition stuff runs on every picture but just doesn't display the tag options if you've opted out.

I think your only real chance of combating this is to pollute the database. Tag yourself in random pictures of other people. Or animals, plants, rocks, cartoon characters etc.

Re:And the downside is?

[cbiltcliffe]

If you have set it up so only friends can view your profile information, pictures, etc. then in only those peoples uploads will you be autotagged. If you allow friends of friends, or groups you belong to to see your information then those peoples uploads will contain your data, etc.

And in order to know whether your pics show friends or random strangers, they've got to do facial recognition on everybody. Then, in order to not have to do FR on every pic every time you make a new FB friend, they've got to store all that info. They just won't make it public.

That is, they won't make it public until everybody's got past this latest privacy flap, then all of a sudden there'll be a new /. post "Facebook using facial recognition to autotag everyone, not just friends."
That doesn't even get into the National Security Letters that have already been brought up by other posters, so I won't rehash them.

Re:And the downside is?

[wrook]

Like a lot of other things with Facebook, Google and the like people are getting worried at the wrong thing. If you are a normal person on Facebook, there are hundreds of photos of you. Your friends are happily tagging them with your name. So now Facebook has this huge database of faces and names. And we can see that they can implement automatic facial recognition. But people are upset that the information is being shared with their friends without notice.

That really shouldn't be the issue. The issue is that Facebook now has a database of your pictures and can match new pictures and get your name if they want to (or are forced to by the state). Having an opt-in for sharing the information with your friends is not as big a problem as the fact that users have already opted in by giving Facebook this information in the first place.

But of course the average person can't see beyond the end of their nose. "What would they do with that information anyway? It's useless" they say. And yet they hit the roof when Facebook actually uses it in the most trivial of ways.

The same goes for people who use their gmail (or yahoo or whatever) accounts and mail bank details, personal addresses, telephone numbers, credit card numbers, etc, etc, etc. People need to stop opting in to this stuff if they are going to complain later that it's getting used.

Re:And the downside is?

[mpe]

So, this weekend if I go downtown to where all of the bars and nightlife are, and I start snapping pictures of people doing various things. Quietly, and unobtrusively mind you.
Now, say I create a facebook account with false profile information, solely so I can upload pictures of people I don't know doing various (and possibly stupid) things. You're no longer some random, mostly anonymous guy in a picture which could have been anywhere ... you're Bob from Detroit. And that guy with the crack pipe is your friend Dave and he's got an outstanding warrant.

You are assuming that whatever facial recognition algorithm Facebook is using is anything near 100% accurate. In practice none are anything like this accurate. Both the false positive and false negative rates of this system are unknown as well as being potentially large.

Re:And the downside is?

[AmiMoJo]

Turn it on/off for who? Your face in other people's photos, or all faces in photos you yourself upload?

They eventually added a privacy option to block other people from tagging you in photos (although they still can, it just doesn't link back to your profile any more). That is what needs to happen here too.

Re:And the downside is?

[AmiMoJo]

I would imagine law enforcement and security services will be insisting on getting that data. Actually the security forces probably already have.

One of the reasons that the last government in the UK wanted to introduce biometric ID cards was pressure from MI5 and the police to capture all that data so they could match it up to photos and CCTV automatically. They already have a pretty good idea where anyone with a mobile phone is at any given time, and of course the automatic number plate (license plate) recognition system has been operating on road traffic cameras for years now.

The only thing Orwell got wrong was the manpower needed to maintain a police state. Computers make it possible to watch everyone all the time.

Re:And the downside is?

[AmiMoJo]

Facebook has to comply with the law, so they will remove stuff if required and in the UK meet their limited obligations under the Data Protection Act.

Re:And the downside is?

[second_coming]

It will be interesting the next time a public disturbance (riot etc) occurs somewhere and the local police ask for Facebooks help in identifying peoples faces in CCTV images.

Re:And the downside is?

[second_coming]

Turn it off for any auto tagged photo of yourself, if you upload a photo which has your friends in it can auto tag them if they have allowed it. You should also have the option of not allowing other people to tag you, not retroactively removing tags after they have been applied.

Re:And the downside is?

[MobyDisk]

And this is why the black-and-white option of "friend" and "non friend" makes no sense. That isn't how social networks work IRL.

Facebook account for IT pros?

[AtomicJake]

This could also be a Slashdot poll: How many IT pros (Web designers do not count, sorry) do you know who have a FB account?
Personally, I do not know any ...

Re:Facebook account for IT pros?

[gstoddart]

I don't personally have an FB account ... but I do personally know literally dozens of professionals in the IT/consulting industry with FB accounts.

I fear we may be increasingly in the minority for this.

Hell, I know people who use their FB account to ask peers technical questions ... just throw out a general "anybody know this?".

Re:Facebook account for IT pros?

[GameboyRMH]

I do web design/programming (among many other things) and have no social media accounts.

I know my boss is on Facebook, but he says he uses it as little as possible (IT manager, former programmer). He has no other social media accounts.

I can't think of any other people I know in IT with social media accounts.

Re:Facebook account for IT pros?

[gnick]

FriendFace accounts, however...

Re:Facebook account for IT pros?

[Yvan256]

How about a more direct poll: Do you have a Facebook account yes/no.

And the next one, same thing but for Twitter.

Re:Facebook account for IT pros?

[TubeSteak]

Hell, I know people who use their FB account to ask peers technical questions ... just throw out a general "anybody know this?".

Isn't that what IRC is for?
That's where I go when I'm bedeviled by a regular expression that refuses to do my bidding.

Re:Facebook account for IT pros?

[killmenow]

I had a facebook account, deleted it, and created a new one. I maintain it primarily as a way to warn many of my friends about the dangers of using facebook.

Made a facebook account last night

[SydShamino]

I broke down, gave up, and made a facebook account last night. Apparently that's what I have to do if I want to keep up with my friends, rather than just sit home, alone but for Warcraft and Netflix.

Their security options were extensive and relatively easy to navigate. It did seem that they were asking the same questions over and over, where they could have just asked me once about some things and been done with it. I could see that someone not so good at diligently following each and every link on the page could accidentally leave some setting at default.

Overall it seemed fine, as long as I keep apps turned off. That I can live with.

Re:Made a facebook account last night

[nschubach]

I had an account at one time. You have to check those privacy settings every so often because they can change without you being aware. I got sick of it and told my friends that they can always IM me.

Re:Made a facebook account last night

[Dynetrekk]

I know you're honest. You can't have been a facebook user for more than one night :) They'll reset and modify your settings soon enough, young one.

Re:Made a facebook account last night

[betterunixthanunix]

Why do you need Facebook to keep up with your friends? You could try actually spending time with them, talking to them, etc.

Re:Made a facebook account last night

[gstoddart]

Why do you need Facebook to keep up with your friends? You could try actually spending time with them, talking to them, etc.

As one of the last remaining hold-outs not using Facebook ... it's actually surprising to hear from friends just how much they see updates from other friends. They can pretty much tell you what a bunch of people all did over the last few weeks, because they see the status updates. They share pics of their kids, or what have you.

When I get together with them, it's like "so, what have you been doing" ... whereas the rest of them are more like "oh, I saw you did x, how was that?".

If all of your friends are using Facebook as the primary way keep people up to date ... sometimes you find yourself being a little out of the loop. Not that I'm going to open a Facebook account ... but sometimes it's hard not to notice this stuff.

Hell, occasionally I hear my mother complaining about some of the pointless and inane stuff that the rest of my family puts on their Facebook pages. When someone in their 70's is aware of it ... it's hard to act like you're not aware of how widespread usage of Facebook actually is.

Re:Made a facebook account last night

[causality]

Why do you need Facebook to keep up with your friends? You could try actually spending time with them, talking to them, etc.

I appreciate what you're trying to do, but it's not going to work.

What you're doing there is sort of like going back in time and trying to tell the Spanish Inquisition that maybe they shouldn't torture people to death on the basis of flimsy accusations with no evidence. Yes, you're right, but they're not likely to listen.

Re:Made a facebook account last night

[Riceballsan]

The issue isn't that they are hard to set up once, the issue is they randomly undo themselves, change the settings and refresh everything back to default open without telling you. Now personally the way I do it I don't see a problem, I sign up, I have one generic picture of myself that people who know me would be able to recognize me, my name. I don't post anything I wouldn't be ok with my boss, girlfriend, future employers and any other person I might possibly see one day knowing.

Re:Made a facebook account last night

[QuasiSteve]

This. (I hate using that, but apparently it's the only way to get the idea across in this day and age that I agree with your post and find it rings very true.)

However, I don't generally mind. So I'm a little 'left out' because people have to ask me what I've been up to. Big deal, I can tell them right there and then. If that means they stare in boredom until finally something I did interests them (which otherwise they would have filtered from status updates), so be it. If nothing else, maybe it'll open them up to my other interests as well and not just the ones that overlap with theirs in the venn diagram of life.

What I do mind is when they come to rely on those status updates as some sort of legitimate form of communication for the things that really, really matter.

I.e. asking what you believe to be a reasonably close friend - albeit from a distance since they moved to a different town - how they're doing, and they respond that they missed you at the wedding. Once you regain your traction of thought from the bafflement, you congratulate him and then ask what happened to the wedding date 2 months from now. They reply by saying that they decided to just do a more informal wedding because the costs for the big wedding were just too high after his now-wife lost her job etc. etc. so they relocated the wedding an opening was available a few days ago and "I posted this on facebook - didn't you read it?".
Well, no, of course you didn't read it, you don't really keep up with people's facebook status messages and honestly you thought you were close enough a friend that you would be told these things directly.. an e-mail, an IM, a text message, a phone call, anything.

And the ridiculous thing is... once you realize that they didn't do that for anyone, i.e. not even for their best man, their family, etc. as long as they were on facebook... you can't even really fault them.

You can still think it's completely inane to use facebook in such a manner, but that doesn't change the fact that out of all of the people, you were the no-show.

Pretty soon people won't even bother with e-mails anymore and tell their friends to just use facebook (or twitter or whatever) because it's just so much more convenient (and, let's be honest, it is.. with all the integration into smartphones that e-mail typically lacks).

Re:Made a facebook account last night

[SydShamino]

Few of them live near me. And the ones that do don't necessarily have a lot of the same hobbies. And most people my age don't check their email as often as they used to, instead relying on facebook...

Re:Made a facebook account last night

[causality]

If all of your friends are using Facebook as the primary way keep people up to date ... sometimes you find yourself being a little out of the loop. Not that I'm going to open a Facebook account ... but sometimes it's hard not to notice this stuff.

Taking a stand based on your principles and your sincere beliefs usually does have a price tag. That's why most people would rather cave in and later rationalize that they did it of their own volition and not due to pressure of one kind or another.

Just appreciate how fortunate you are. Many times when someone stands behind their beliefs, against the grain of the prevailing consensus, the price tag is higher than the mere inconvenience you mention. It's true that your only real obligation is to be true to yourself.

It's nice to hear from others who have the courage to make their own decisions for themselves, and not merely because "everyone else is doing it". Even if your decision was to create a Facebook account, it's far better when it's actually your own, not merely the sum total of external influences that are stronger than your individuality and your values.

For not yielding to that, I salute you. The beauty is, if you understand and appreciate this for a relatively minor issue like whether to participate in Facebook, you also understand and appreciate it for much more important decisions. That's probably the least-understood aspect to this, that the behavior exhibited over relatively minor things like Facebook is a microcosm of much greater patterns. The underlying principle is the same. Individuality and free thought carry serious burdens and are not for the faint of heart, yet the freedom they provide is an incredible bargain at any cost.

Re:Made a facebook account last night

[SydShamino]

Ugh, I hated IM just as much. Maybe more. With IM I lose any sense of detachment because I have to respond right then.

Re:Made a facebook account last night

[SydShamino]

However, I don't generally mind. So I'm a little 'left out' because people have to ask me what I've been up to. Big deal

Yeah, that was 15 years of my life. And now I decided I'd rather not be isolated any more, and this feeling of being 'left out' bothers the hell out of me. So I fixing it with (*coughs and looks sad*) facebook.

Re:Made a facebook account last night

[nschubach]

To be fair, I have an Android phone, so IM'ing me gives me an alert (like txt'ing) but I never feel the need to respond immediately. If they ask, "I didn't hear the notification." (Which isn't always a lie. I tend to keep my phone on low/vibrate and respond when I please.)

Re:Made a facebook account last night

[fbexpressions]

"Overall it seemed fine, as long as I keep apps turned off. That I can live with."
Same here :)

Re:Recognise *THIS*, motherfuckers!

[guppysap13]

I never thought I'd see the day goatse might actually be a positive contribution to a discussion...

Shit, this is what I feared

[GameboyRMH]

My facebooktard family is always posting and tagging pics of me at family gatherings, I knew facial recognition to auto-tag people in pics was the next step...maybe next they'll make "info pages" for nonexistant users, that will practially be an "unmanned" facebook profile filled with 3rd-party information, that you can sign up to claim at any time...great...

Re:Shit, this is what I feared

[Ambvai]

Hi Bob,

We just noticed that your friends and family have 4986 photos with you in it! There are embarrassing baby photos, pictures of your drunk college days and even two videos of that porno you made with that sorority girl (You might want to post on her memorial page, may she rest in peace.) too! Join today and keep everybody else from from telling what you've been up to!

Re:Shit, this is what I feared

[janestarz]

The Person you tagged as being Jane Starz does not have a Facebook account. However: We have found these e-mail addresses, a blog, a Flickr page, twenty-nine forum accounts, pictures from their childhood and two criminal records .
[ ] Would you like to use our handy app to contact this person?
[ ] Would you like to create a Facebook page for this person and add all this data to the page with Just One Handy click?
{Submit} {Cancel} (Wait, that's actually also a submit button, but never mind. Just say yes.)

Re:Shit, this is what I feared

[ginbot462]

One minor nitpick, buttons function as so:

{Submit} {Cancel}

OnSubmit: NoReallyJustSubmit();
OnCancel: NoReallyJustSubmit();

Re:Shit, this is what I feared

[Sentrion]

Fact is there are people with very good reasons, both rightly and wrongly - victims and perpetrators, who still have a semi-normal family and social life, but otherwise desire to keep their personal information very private. Case in point I was once scammed out of a few thousand dollars from a person that I knew very little about. It was as if he disappeared off the face of the earth. Police considered it a civil matter and were of no help. But with a little help from Google search I was able to find more information about him, and eventually found his network of friends and family on facebook, which through just a little bit of amateur pretext and social engineering lead me directly to his front door. Pictures of him and his associates in front of various buildings came in very handy, especially with Google Streetview to verify exact locations (and this is without image recognition software). He never had any social networking account of his own, and even concealed much of his personal info from public records using various techniques that I won't go into here. I won't mention what I did to him once I found him. But were it not for Facebook and the ease of surfing through unlimited sources of information from the comfort of my desk chair without the time and expense of walking any streets or interrogating bartenders like a bad episode of Walker Texas Ranger, I, an ordinary citizen with a full time job, kids, and a tight budget, would have otherwise not even attempted such a search.

I can only hope that I never offend a mafia family or drug cartel. Staying hidden is the only defense, and increasingly impossible without fleeing to the wilderness or a third world country.

Re:Shit, this is what I feared

[wrook]

The buttons are:

{Submit}{Fail}{Retry}

Where {Fail} and {Retry} simply reload the same page...

Come on, guys

[Kiliani]

I mean, after all, it is called Facebook.

But I have to give it to Zuckerberg. I am logging into Facebook much more often now - even if it is only to change my (new) privacy settings, again, and again, and again ...

Re:Come on, guys

[ginbot462]

So, he sounds like every other CEO then? And yes, God damn him .what-ever God he/she/it/tree/puma may be. Yes, even atheists (is there adeists?). Turns out, one of God's persona's is a big George Carlin fan (and others of his ilk), and well .. let say just he gets to bring the chops.

Re:Come on, guys

[Antisyzygy]

Im an atheist too. When I say "God damn" its a throwback to my religious upbringing.

Re:Come on, guys

[ginbot462]

Religion/atheism/etc is just another categorical mechanism to separate the masses (sometimes with injection attacks) so that they don't form a solid, defensible, and viable alternative. Typical divide and conquer. Who is our next enemy? It's not Nazi, Commusnist, Drugs, but Terrorists now? Who is it? Bow before the Almighty Corp, they will help guide you. And if inclined, will trickle our riches down to you.

The devil is real; usually you can tell by the (R) or (D) next to their name :).

I somehow resisted going full Godwin.

Very Small Inconvenience

[curio_city]

Every time somebody tags a user in a photo, the user is notified and can untag him/herself.

The algorithm uses images that have already been tagged as X person for the reference. Tagging the wall behind you, or your pants, etc., should confuse the inputs enough to prevent good matches. This affects facebook's ability to find and recognize photos of you, which is slightly separate from other users' ability to find photos of you, since facial recognition indexing will occur even if you untag yourself or "opt out".

Re:Very Small Inconvenience

[drinkypoo]

This seems like it would make it a very good thing when people post all these grids of "funny" pictures which they then tag with their friends' names...

Re:Very Small Inconvenience

[wjousts]

Every time somebody tags a user in a photo, the user is notified and can untag him/herself.

And if somebody tags a photo of you and you are not a user (IIRC, a Facebook user can tag any picture with your name, even if you are not a Facebook user yourself)? How does Facebook notify you? How can you untag it?

Answer: you can't.

Next question, if Facebook is using facial recognition, does it work on non-users? If somebody tags a photo with the name of a non-user, will it look for other photos of that non-user and try and automatically tag them?

The scary part is that Facebook has a profile for you, even if you have never visited Facebook. Notice all those "Like" buttons on your favorite websites - unless you are never accept cookies, Facebook already has a profile built up for you just in case you decide to join sometime in the future. How nice of them!

Re:Very Small Inconvenience

[wjousts]

Does everyone not do that these days?

No they don't. Most people don't in fact. (actually I do, at least on my work computer). I guess it doesn't cover you, well done. Feel free to walk around today with a feeling of superiority.

Re:Very Small Inconvenience

[wjousts]

And if that photo is public, and somebody searches for your name, and already knows what you look like (maybe because they just interviewed you for a job) and finds that drunken picture your "friend" posted to their Facebook page....so yes, in theory, Facebook could bite you in the ass even if you have never used it.

Sure this is less of a problem if your name is John Smith.

Re:Very Small Inconvenience

[zoney_ie]

I'm sure someone in the EU could take a case against them. When they notify you that a friend wants you to join, I am sure the later reminders they send are long after they should have deleted your email address. Additionally they seem to link a circle of potential "friends" with your email address ("you may also know") - some of whom are unrelated to the friend who gave Facebook your email. Finally they have your real name too (again courtesy of your friend).

As far as I know, this kind of thing is illegal under European data protection rules. It simply requires someone to gather hard evidence (email trail) and find out who is the relevant person in Brussels to send it to.

----

A note on the OP, as regards the unreleased Google tool, how do we know they aren't using this internally to tag photos of people in streetview internally in order to cross-reference this geographic information with other profile information on individuals, used for advertising?

----

It's all gone beyond sci-fi stuff at this stage - truly the realm of nightmares. The Sony fiasco was only the beginning.

Re:Very Small Inconvenience

[wjousts]

I'm not sure if it is substantially different; maybe because of the scale of Facebook? How many people do you know who blog? Now how many people do you know who use Facebook?

Re:Very Small Inconvenience

[Luthair]

Except that Facebook needs to know the specific John Smith. There are far too many people with the exact same names to be able to tag people without profiles. Sure, there is some hand waving about narrowing it by social circles, but look at how far reaching friend suggestions generally are.

Re:Very Small Inconvenience

[wjousts]

But (if you read my comment further down), if I already know what you look like (for example, I just interviewed you for a job) and I search for "John Smith" and come across a picture in your "friends" public profile that I immediately recognize as you, and it has you in a compromising position...it could be a problem. Sure it's might be a bigger deal if your name is "Egbert Havernshorham III".

Re:Very Small Inconvenience

[wjousts]

Good for you. If you every have something useful to say, please feel free to post again.

Facebook's new motto...

[HikingStick]

It's easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.

Re:Facebook's new motto...

[Combatso]

when did they ask forgivness?

Maybe I'm naive, but...

[Nick Fel]

I don't really see the problem with this one. Is it so bad that my friends are allowed to know what my face looks like? Is that how scared of everything we've become? I know it's pretty crappy the way Facebook quietly defaults everything to public, but in this case I'm not quite sure what the problem is. If it's just the fact that you don't get a say in who tags you in what, that's a very very old (albeit legitimate) problem.

Re:Maybe I'm naive, but...

[dcollins]

Well technically, you do have control over who tags you in what (or even if tagging you is allowed at all). What you don't have control over is people uploading pictures with you in them, or general comments to that effect.

Re:Maybe I'm naive, but...

[Combatso]

I think it will be interesting... does it just do friends faces or all faces? Some of the group shots where I have no idea who was with me at concerts, parties, etc.. would be interesting to know who they are... ofcourse, not so cool if someone could take a picture of a random stranger and find out who their name.

Re:Maybe I'm naive, but...

[AHuxley]

Astonishing Tribe had Recognizer, there was Face Match, think back to Operation Nobel Shield. Add in the Local Feature Analysis (LFA) vs the hinted at speed of nodal point databases and the known US populations size - public and private facial recognition is getting interesting, cheap and very fast.
Your face and someone who is a friend of a friend ... could be on a list. A one person list, a private firm or government - once they have you connected with a pic you uploaded?

Re:Maybe I'm naive, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

When you get your picture taken at a rally for a cause you think is good, maybe you can't get hired by some bigot.

Maybe get your picture taken with someone who later turns out to have a famous disease, like HIV, and suddenly can't get insurance.

Maybe you're seen at a rally for a political candidate and later you have an FBI file without having committed a crime.

These things have already happened. But by all means, you post on the facialbook all day long if you're okay with it.

Re:Maybe I'm naive, but...

[Nick Fel]

You all have valid points, but they all relate to the *existing* tagging functionality. All this new functionality does is make it slightly easier for your friends to tag you, which they're clearly putting the effort in to do anyway. They know what you look like.

Social network with Facial Recognition!

[Combatso]

holy jumpin jesus! they shold have called it FACEbook... oh wait

"Do Not Track"

[chub_mackerel]

Yes, this is the thing that bugs me as well, about the whole concept of social media offered by companies that think information about friends/associations should be a commodity... There's no way to opt out as others provide information about you even if you don't participate.

Maybe we can get "Do Not Track" barcodes tattooed on our foreheads.

I'm half serious about this (OK, maybe not the tattoo part) -- some creative RMS or legal type needs to come up with some shrink-wrap-like default privacy opt-out agreement that subverts all this crap, in the same way that open source licenses turns copyright around.

Example: a single bar code that anyone can place on their shirt, clothes, whatever. The assumption being that any system capable of facial recognition is also capable of reading a barcode... And that the meaning of the barcode - reflected in an online "trackwrap" license - is essentially "this person can not be tracked," or more exactly, "any person/organization voluntarily tracking this person in also agreeing to the terms of the agreement posted online at www.don'ttrackmeblablabla.org"

Anyone want to take a crack at this? I'm willing to pitch in.

Re:"Do Not Track"

[GameboyRMH]

The tech to do it exists. All you need is a Do Not Track system and something like a more simple, long-distance-readable QR code.

The problem is that the Do Not Track system is nothing more than a gentleman's agreement. Once a company decides to break it, it's worthless. Like a Do Not Rob sign.

Goodbye WitSec

[sziring]

It seems the government can save money by eliminating Witness Protection now that global facial recognition is available via Facebook. It's only a matter of time before someone figures out a way to scan all users, not just friends or people that opt in.

Facebook Privacy Concept is Flawed...

[I)_MaLaClYpSe_(I]

...since it depends on the commons sense of all your friends. What could possibly go wrong?

I permanently deleted my facebook account a few weeks ago: a worm was spreading very fast through facebook and for over a week I could not notify facebook about the issue.

The worm spread via event invitations containing a link to a site that social engineered the people into copying Java script code into their browser so that it would steal their account credentials and propagate further. And facebook does not provide you with any means of contacting anybody at all, let alone from the security team! Instead, you are dependent on those buttons that let you report inappropriate messages or such. Only those event invitations did not have such buttons. I wasted dozens of hours trying to notify them about the scheme but finally gave up and deleted my account.

I learnt one thing: the privacy concept of facebook is fundamentally flawed as your own private data that you share with friends and family is dependent on the common sense of these friends. It needs only one of them to be stupid enough to follow complex procedures of copying JavaScript code because they think they could find out who viewed their profile or such to completely compromise your privacy.

I for one am outta there. And if you look closely enough, you find a hell of a lot worms and security vulnerabilities in facebook.

Re:Facebook Privacy Concept is Flawed...

[timeOday]

the privacy concept of facebook is fundamentally flawed as your own private data that you share with friends and family is dependent on the common sense of these friends

Don't blame facebook; that principle is fundamental to security in general. If you share a secret with somebody not trustworthy (whether they're malicious, incompetent, or unknowingly compromised), the cat is out of the bag. DRM faces the same problem; how can I distribute data to people who pay me yet restrict them from redistributing it? You can't, not completely.

This won't stop entirely just because you opted out of Facebook, either. Anybody can post information about you.

Re:Facebook Privacy Concept is Flawed...

[jimmypw]

Anybody can post information about you.

Sure they can, Much in the same way the newspapers can run a story on you that you did not give consent for. The difference is that because facebook potentially store a lot of information on you and are constantly attempting to make it public. Whereas a newspaper article may stop at your name and possibly an embarrassing picture of you caught at mid pose. A facebook account may go as far as to divulge everything from your current location too you being 'tagged' in the aforementioned newspaper article; oh yeah and your back catalog of relationships, your parents and siblings, your dogs name, what side of the bed you sleep on etc...

And for what I ask you? I'm not about to write a Doctorate on what facebook is, but to me it's a load of people talking insignificant drivel (i can't believe you are still reading this :-) that most of the time struggle to make a coherent sentence. At the same time being bombarded with messages from people that want your money.

I also quit facebook today.

Re:Facebook Privacy Concept is Flawed...

[I)_MaLaClYpSe_(I]

Sure, anybody can social engineer your friends into telling them private information about you. However, the big difference here is the tool (Facebook) that enables the attacker to automate this process in the form of a self replicating social engineering worm affecting millions of users without you having to be specifically targeted by a social engineer.

Do you see the problem here?

Re:Facebook Privacy Concept is Flawed...

[I)_MaLaClYpSe_(I]

This is just wrong. There is the possibility to suspend your account; however facebook has also added the possibility to permanently delete your account. I just tried it: logging in with my old fb account informs me that the email address I entered is not associated with any accounts. My account is deleted, once and for all.

What's the big deal?

[MaWeiTao]

I was initially concerned about this until I read up on what it does. Honestly, in the scheme of things this feature is fairly benign. Anyone who who recognizes you won't need this feature to tell them who you are. You can't control what photos others are posting and what are people doing to do with this anyway, especially if you've got other privacy settings locked down.

The fact is, if you're concerned about privacy you shouldn't be on Facebook to begin with.

And from what I've been told it's quite impressive, being able to pick out people fairly accurately even from grainy and dark photos.

Re:What's the big deal?

[mattncsu03]

I've noticed for a while that when I set my profile picture to a group picture, it automatically tries to crop the image close to my face instead of others. Perhaps this feature has been in silent testing for months.

What do you mean, without any warning?

[gravis777]

without giving users any notice

Um, http://www.facebook.com/facebook If you don't follow what they are doing, you can't say that they gave you no notice. In particular - https://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=467145887130

Its clearly posted so anyone can see what's up

Re:What do you mean, without any warning?

[gravis777]

Also, this post was published a few months back - https://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=432670242130

Once again, Facebook makes very clear what it is they are rolling out. If you don't follow what they are doing, you can't say you were not warned.

No-way-Opt-out

[poind3xt3r]

"The tool would still scan that person's face and figure out who it is, but it won't display that information. People can still manually tag friends."

Looks as if there is no way to REALLY opt out. I wonder if the same applies to all their other privacy settings?

A good thing

[mmcuh]

All the three-letter-agencies that have access to the database almost certainly have been running facial recognition on it for years. Making it visible to users doesn't make it much worse, if anything it's good. Maybe people will start thinking about the consequences of uploading photos of themselves, their friends, their families, their homes etc.

Or maybe not.

I'll Take It One Step Further

[Slashdot Parent]

My first reaction was the typical, "Oh, great. Where's the privacy setting on this, because I'm killing this, ASAP." But on second thought, I'd much rather have this feature enabled.

With this feature, I'm more likely to notice if someone uploads a picture of me, and then I can take a look at it and make sure it's something I'm OK with being posted. Without the feature, if someone uploads a photo of me and doesn't tag it, I'll probably never know. But the photo will be out there, and there's nothing to stop someone else from using facial recognition to tie the photo to me.

So I'm leaving this enabled.

What if you're NOT a facebook user, but tagged...

[jtara]

I haven't seen anything yet on this scenario: what if you AREN'T a Facebook user (yes, there are a few of us) but you're tagged in pictures? (Facebook users can tag non-Facebook users). Will this feature suggest that friends tag you when you appear in new pictures that they upload?

If so, how would a non-Facebook user opt-out?

Of course this problem starts with the ability to tag non-Facebook users, so it's not a new intrusion - it's one that's existed for some time.

I, for one, am so cool b/c I dont use FB

[gatkinso]

It had to be posted, at least 1000 times.

Re:What if you're NOT a facebook user, but tagged.

[QRDeNameland]

I'd like to see an answer for this as well. I wasn't even sure if you could tag non-users in photos. If this is the case, I hate Facebook even more, and can only hope they get raped by a class action lawsuit. The term 'ZuckerBorg' seems more fitting with each passing day.

Detagging doesn't really rereference

[improfane]

Detagging your name doesn't really 'dereference' you in the Facebook database.

Yes, I Am

[The Wild Norseman]

If the NSA for example, isn't involved with this in some way, I bet good money that they're watching very closely about how this facial recognition technology works out in the real world so they can improve their systems.

I didn't read all the comments (rare for me), so apologies if I repeated anything.

One of the holy grails of group control

[SuperCharlie]

Leaning towards the tin-hat side, and not trusting govt or even big business any farther than.. well.. practically none.. I believe Assange when he says FB is a hideous tool of data collection for the govt, but even worse than this, the masses are populating data and beta testing software that will eventually allow every camera on every streetlight, ATM, convenience store and mall to identify and monitor us. What comes next..I dont know, but it scary to think that there will be very few places where you will not be tracked and identified.