Privacy Law
EU Regulators Cast Wary Eye on New Facebook 'Tag Suggestions' Photo Facial Recognition Feature
A new Facebook feature that automatically offers “Tag Suggestions” about identifying individuals in photos is being scrutinized by European Union data-protection regulators concerned that it could violate privacy rules, reports Bloomberg.
“Tags of people on pictures should only happen based on people’s prior consent and it can’t be activated by default,” said Gerard Lommel of Luxembourg. He is a member of the group known as the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party.
The new feature, which is active on American users’ Facebook accounts unless they disable it, only offers suggestions about identifying photos of known friends. It uses facial recognition software to suggest names to use to identify the individuals in the photos.
