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Germany Says Facebook's Facial Recognition Is Illegal

Posted by samzenpus on from the pictures-of-you dept.

fysdt writes "Although we think it's generally a pretty nifty feature, valid concerns over the misuse of Facebook's auto-recognition tagging have lead Germany to ban it entirely. That's right — Facebook in its current state is now illegal. The German government, which possesses perhaps the world's most adamant privacy laws as a result of postwar abuse, considers Facebook's facial recognition a violation of 'the right to anonymity.'"

14 of 278 comments (clear)

  1. GO GERMANS by tenshihan · · Score: 5, Funny

    That shit is orwellian in how scary it is. You there, in 12b. Do more push-ups. Your facebook photos are getting fatter.

    1. Re:GO GERMANS by drolli · · Score: 5, Informative

      It should be noted how that works. In Germany every institution which processes personal data has to have a "Datenschutzbeauftragter" (Personal privacy protection responsible), ans this since the early 90s (as far as i remember). And there are one of these for each of the Countries in Germany.

      As fas as i understand the west German strong movement and awareness for the issue arose in 1987 census, which caused a lot of work for the courts and polarized the population against government data collection. Before that the "Rasterfahndung" (a sieving of registration office and other data to find terrorism suspects) in the 1970s deepened the split between the different political views in Germany (IMHO prolonging the support for the terroristic "red army fraction" in the population). About former East Germany it can only be said that people who were spied upon all the time and having disadvantaged in life if saying privately the wrong thing may not feel very well about being tracked.

      Last but not least one of the first large-scale usage of automated population databases (on Hollerith puchcards) in Germany was the organization of the Holocaust.

      All these are good reasons that Germany should be extra-careful about data collections. And germans should be, too, but every time i stand in the shop at the cashier is am asked if i use a customer point card (which then would probably allow the company behind to correlate my buying of underwear with the books i buy).

      I for my part can only say that i am lucky that i forbid even friends to put photos of me to an uncontrolled space in the Internet. There is only a

    2. Re:GO GERMANS by kuiperbelt · · Score: 4, Informative

      Countries in Germany, eh? Which ones would those be exactly?

      Parent almost certainly means the states of the federal republic (Länder). The word "Land" in German can translate as "country" or "state".

    3. Re:GO GERMANS by drolli · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Well the problem is simple. If facebook offers such a service then it falls under the laws existing in Germany. If they offer the service to identify me personally against their database on photos which other people upload then they need my permission to do so.

      The problem is that as long as facebook does not require any valid identification to get an account there, there is no way that would prevent the following: somebody uploads a photo of mine as his account photo and then asks facebook to look for him (that is, me) and then he or she can easily find out what i am doing even if i never touched anything there or my name is not mentioned. Very practical if you are an employer (applications in Germany still contain your photo).....

  2. My right of notbeingrecognized is being recognized by kasnol · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Finally someone recognizes the right of "not being recognized without consent".

  3. Just the facial recognition component? by wickerprints · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The whole damn site is a privacy violation. I don't even use FB and I know that there are photos of me floating around on there, tagged by my so-called "friends." Short of being a hermit, I have no way to stop people from uploading data that identifies me to a site that makes money by exploiting that knowledge to sell shit.

    1. Re:Just the facial recognition component? by HellYeahAutomaton · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If they snapped a photo of you while you were walking down the street, deal with it because that is a public space and anyone could have done that.

      The problem here is how people will deal with it:
      a) The native American who doesn't want their soul stolen.
      b) The wanna-be fashion diva who claims you didn't get their release, and you are stealing their IP, livelihood, etc.
      c) Or the guy who just wants to kick your ass because he doesn't want photos around that he didn't consent.

      People in general have a reasonable expectation of privacy everywhere they go despite what all of the social media douchebags think. When you click that photo, you best be sure you know how to defend yourself, because you do not know how people are going to react.

    2. Re:Just the facial recognition component? by Kagetsuki · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Ditto. And I get constant e-mails from Facebook because my friends decided to import their address books and now Facebook knows me. What's amazing is that my dead uncle who I only met once in person while living, his account still exists and Facebook keeps telling me he "wants to reconnect" with me. Yeah, I'm never signing up.

    3. Re:Just the facial recognition component? by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Interesting

      If they snagged a photo of you, they probably did so because you interacted with them. At that point, what you do is public knowledge.

      Our law disagrees. Actually, even taking a picture of someone (safe celebrities known to the law as "people of public interest") is not permitted without his or her explicit consent. Publishing this picture in whatever way requires consent again, and permitting the former does not imply permitting the latter in the slightest.

      It's quite similar in Germany, btw.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    4. Re:Just the facial recognition component? by Pieroxy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You are missing the point by about a hundred thousand miles. What happens in real life cannot be cross connected and searched on in a fraction of a second. What computers brought to the picture is this ability. Cross the social security database with Facebook and Google databases and you've got a tool that is all dictators wet dreams.

      Of course, nothing more than being recognized in the street. Except it is a lot more.

      In France, we have a state-backed organism that basically prevents any private database from using a key from another database. It also forces companies to delete or update your account if you wish (it's the law that YOU have control over YOUR data even if it's in some companies database.)

      It's a bit harder to build databases. Sure, using the SSN to identify everyone resolves a lot os issues, but that's strictly forbidden. As a result, identity theft is a concept that doesn't exist in France.

      The fact that anyone can recognize you in the street is *not* equivalent to random people tagging you on Facebook.

      --
      Write boring code, not shiny code!
  4. Re:And yet by CohibaVancouver · · Score: 4, Informative

    Personally I'd like to know what the "post war privacy abuses" that TFA is speaking of that turned Germany so pro privacy.

    How quickly we forget that before 1990 what we now know as "Germany" included *EAST* Germany.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi

    The East German Stasi had a network where neighbours ratted each other out, had huge databases listing all kinds of data of their citizens... On and on. As a consequence, much of Germany now has a huge pro-privacy culture, and a sense that citizens must 'never again' be tracked.

  5. Re:the end of privacy? by hjf · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Stop confusing anonymity with privacy.

  6. Not "banned". by Udo+Schmitz · · Score: 4, Informative

    From the original source (http://www.thelocal.de/sci-tech/20110803-36703.html):

    "Johannes Caspar, Hamburg’s data protection official, on Tuesday said the feature was a serious violation of people’s rights to determine what is done with their personal data. He added that German authorities would take quick legal action if Facebook did not comply with his demands.

    This could include fines of up to €300,000 ($426,000), Caspar said.

    “Should Facebook maintain the function, it must ensure that only data from persons who have declared consent to the storage of their biometric facial profiles be stored in the database,” he said."

    At the moment this is just an opinion of the appointed guy for data protection of the city state of Hamburg. Not even a minister/secretary. Although he certainly has a point and Facebook could be fined, Germany is not Iran. We don't just "ban" stuff.

  7. Re:My right of notbeingrecognized is being recogni by gbjbaanb · · Score: 4, Insightful

    yup, this is Germany.

    Once you realise the first time there was computerised cataloging of individuals, it was used to divvy them up into those who will be sent to the gas chamber and those who would be good blue-eyed blonds. You can understand why this is a big deal and why the law is set as it is. Even facebook doesn't get an opt-out for this.