Facebook has just announced its intention to incorporate the profile photos of its billions of members into its facial recognition database . This face recognition technology is already used in the Tag Suggest tool to speed up the process of tagging friends and acquaintances from the photos we post on the social network. Currently, the technology automatically identifies faces in newly uploaded photos by comparing them to previous images that users have tagged. And, later, Facebook users can choose to remove the tags that identify them in the photos posted by other people on the social network. With this new extension, identification could be even faster and more efficient.
According to Facebook privacy officer Erin Egan, the goal "is to make tagging easier so that people know there are photos of them on our service." Facebook users who are uncomfortable with facial recognition technology will be able to completely dispense with the technology suggested by tagging, in which case their profile picture will not be included in the facial recognition database.
