Facebook Disables Face Recognition In EU

SquarePixel writes "Facebook has disabled face recognition features on its site for all new European users. The move follows privacy recommendations made by the Irish Data Protection Commissioner. Tag Suggest information has been turned off for new users, and Facebook plans to delete the information for existing EU users by October 15th. 'The DPC says today’s report (PDF) is the result of evaluations it made through the first half of 2012 and on-site at Facebook’s HQ in Dublin over the course of two days in May and four in July. The DPC says FB has made just about all of the improvements it requested in five key areas: better transparency for the user in how their data is handled; user control over settings; more clarity on the retention periods for the deletion of personal data, and users getting more control over deleting things; an improvement in how users can access their personal data; and the ability of Facebook to be able to better track how they are complying with data protection requirements.'"

Comments

Europe knows what's going on

[GameboyRMH]

Other countries should get a clue before they lose what privacy they have left. It's not an obsolete concept just because the execs of the companies that stand to profit most from your personal info say so. Facial recognition technology is one of the biggest threats to privacy.

Re:Europe knows what's going on

[Anonymous Coward]

Other countries should get a clue before they lose what privacy they have left. It's not an obsolete concept just because the execs of the companies that stand to profit most from your personal info say so. Facial recognition technology is one of the biggest threats to privacy.

So... all of the US Facebook account DO have the face recognition tech running non-stop? That's good to know.
Facebook doesn't exactly announce all of the crap they do to fuck with your privacy. Slashdot is one of the places that keeps me informed.

Re:Europe knows what's going on

[ShanghaiBill]

Other countries should get a clue before they lose what privacy they have left.

Yet in many EU countries it is illegal to walk down the street if you shield your face from public view.

As an American, I think holding the EU up as a model for personal freedom is ridiculous.

Re:Europe knows what's going on

[GameboyRMH]

Good thing the US has no such laws

Re:Europe knows what's going on

[WaZiX]

Yet in many EU countries it is illegal to walk down the street if you shield your face from public view.

As an American, I think holding the EU up as a model for personal freedom is ridiculous.

Well, don't know about personal freedom (although having lived both in the US and Europe, I feet more free in Europe), but on the internet privacy topic there are good things coming from the EU. Not taking those good things as a model would be kind of stupid... Just like judging the whole topic of personal freedom on a single law is kind of stupid.

Re:Europe knows what's going on

[ShanghaiBill]

Can you list these countries? I call bullshit.

Obscuring your face in public is illegal in France and Belgium. In some other countries, including Italy and Spain, there is no national law, but it is illegal in many localities.

Re:Europe knows what's going on

[Sir_Sri]

The EU isn't about personal freedom. On the spectrum of 'liberty equality and brotherhood' (liberte, egalite fraternite) europe and canada have landed on the side of Equality before the others, the US 'liberty' first, and China and Japan are more in the 'brotherhood' as in service to the country first.

As an American, I think holding the EU up as a model for personal freedom is ridiculous.

As a canadian I think holding up the united states a model of anything worth emulating is ridiculous. About the only thing you can say you do better than we do is bomb people, and half the time that does more harm than good.

See the problem? We all look at the primary responsibility of the role of government and the people differently. So we don't try and emulate each other, we should steal good ideas as they come up, and reject bad ones. The EU is trying to bottle up facebooks privacy invasion service, that's good. They supported the americans in torturing people, that's bad, but they're coming around to prosecuting that, which is good. The US has a relatively large federal government, in a single currency, the EU has almost no 'federal' government and a hodge podge of currencies but the Euro area is a single currency without a state, you can guess which is working better based on what is happening in Spain, Italy, and Greece.

We also have recognize where our situations are different. Police in England don't carry guns, but there's also a lot less gun crime in england than in the US, so following the US model would be bad, and the US following the UK model wouldn't work either (unless you could magically make millions of guns appear or disappear of course).

Re:Europe knows what's going on

[Svippy]

It's not illegal in Belgium

Yes it is. Please read the link I provided, or you can use Google to find hundreds of other references.

It was a ban on burkas. Yes, it's ridiculous, but it is not illegal to wear masks in Belgium. It was a ban on religious clothing that obscures a face, particularly forced upon women. But the amount of burkas used in Belgium is probably at a minimum.

Italy or Spain.

Italy and Spain have local bans. For instance, obscuring your face in public is illegal in Barcelona.

Actually, it's only illegal in public buildings, such as markets and libraries, which your link itself lists quite clearly. You can still walk outside while having your face obscured.

So basically, your "many EU countries" is "France". Belgium's law will likely have little consequence, and it seems that the Barcelona law is a protection of public buildings. Not that Turkey is the pedestal of civil rights, but they also had a similar ban as Barcelona (until at least very recently).

Denmark also have a ban on masks, but only during demonstrations and other large crowds. The usual freedom was previously abused heavily by activists to destroy property rather than actual demonstrate. The rationale is that if you are really interested in your message, you will have no issue showing your face at a public demonstration.

But most of these laws seems to be a form of Islamophobia than an actual crackdown on civil liberties, which seems to be collateral damage. There was even talk about banning burkas in Denmark, until politicians realised only 5 people in the whole country wore them, and they were ethnic Danes who had converted to Islam. The cases might even be similar in most other EU countries. Like the Swiss ban on Minarets. Ridiculous.

Billions prolly an underestimate over the millenia

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Ok, Europe's solved a relatively minor problem hostorically -- evil corporations tracking you.

Now you need to tackle the other 99.99% of the historical problem, billions-of-needless-deathswise, and stop government from facial recognition, and license plate recognition, and so on and automated assembly into tracking databases.

Just Moved to Dublin, Ireland

[Bob9113]

I just logged in to Facebook and changed my home to Dublin, Ireland.

Re:Billions prolly an underestimate over the mille

[Aqualung812]

My thoughts exactly. I really don't care about a big evil corporation knowing where I've been, my religion, what I weigh, who I have sex with, etc. If anything, the more they know about me, the more likely that they will make products I want to buy.

However, the government knowing all of those things is actually something to be concerned about.

I think it is quite a marketing feat by the EU: Make it appear that they are strong defenders of privacy by being ruthless in protecting the privacy of consumers, while implementing far worse privacy breaches on their own citizens.

What is Facebook good for, again?

[cristiroma]

Excuse my ignorance, but I don't have have myself an Facebook account. What is exactly good for? I don't chat, I usually prefer to talk to friends over a beer. I share pictures over Picasa. So what value would an Facebook account add for someone? Thank you.

Julian Assange was right on Facebook...

[dryriver]

Assange called Facebook "The most abominable spying-machine created in all of human history". I'm inclined to think that he was right about that, since U.S. 3 letter agencies seem to have bought special software that crawls sites like Facebook to collect as much data/information about each person as possible. -------- The EU did the right thing here. Suckerberg can't be trusted with anybody's privacy. -------- Now if only I could live to see the day when people voluntarily delete their profiles off Facebook, and use alternate services that aren't as intrusive...