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Facebook Facial Recognition Under Scrutiny In Norway

Posted by timothy on from the stepford-objects-for-a-different-reason dept.

Qedward writes "Certainly not the first country to raise concerns, but Facebook's facial recognition feature will now be investigated by the Norwegian Data Protection Agency. Last year, Facebook added the ability to use facial recognition technology to help to tag images as a default feature to users worldwide. Ove Skåra, communications manager at the Norwegian Data Protection Agency or Datatilsynet said: 'Facial recognition, is a technology that it is important to have critical view of, and see how it is actually used.' Outside of Europe, U.S. Senator Al Franken, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee's privacy subcommittee, called on Facebook to turn off the feature by default in July."

4 of 29 comments (clear)

  1. Hmmm.... by Rei · · Score: 2

    If I'm not mistaken, doesn't FB learn what you look like based on photos that you've been tagged in?

    So couldn't you, for example, consistently mistag yourself (or even a complete stranger) if you wanted to confuse it? Oh, sure, your friends might wonder why Facebook keeps suggesting that you get tagged whenever a picture of the president's dog shows up, but...

    --
    Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
    1. Re:Hmmm.... by hobarrera · · Score: 2

      Or, if you're serious about privacy, just don't use facebook or don't upload any photos of yourself.

    2. Re:Hmmm.... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      If you create an account it will immediately suggest people you might know when you first log in. That suggests that Facebook is already building shadow profiles of people based on names mentioned and unknown faces in photographs.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  2. Re:Stop the presses! by EmagGeek · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Please explain to me how setting the switch to the "off" position by default limits consumer access to the technology.