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How Do You Feel About Facebook's Use of Facial-Recognition Technology?

Even members of the U.S. Senate are expressing some unease about Facebook’s use of face recognition technology.

 

Facebook can now be your friend without even knowing your name. The social media network has been using facial-recognition technology to make it easier to tag friends in photos, but the practice has now even made the government uneasy. As proof of its commitment to the ongoing use of this policy, Facebook recently acquired Face.com, an Israeli firm specializing in facial-recognition software.

According to Macworld, members of a U.S. Senate subcommittee held hearings on Wednesday about the social media’s use of this technology. Senators are suggesting that laws be adjusted to keep up with the use of facial-recognition technology in the private arena. Facebook uses the application to immediately recognize names to go with faces to suggest tagging when photos are uploaded. The feature makes it easier to spread the information out to other friends on the network.

Like most Facebook features, you can choose to "opt out" of this particular application. However, officials suggest that maybe it should rather be one you can choose to "opt in." Facebook representives, however, have said the whole Facebook experience offered is voluntary, so technically that choice was already made. Nobody is forcing anyone to use Facebook and therefore by doing so, you've already answered the "opt-in" question.

How do you feel Facebook’s use of facial recognition technology? Are you comfortable knowing that your Facebook experience is not just one where everybody knows your name – they also know your face?

Related Topics: facebook facial recognition

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Vanzetta Evans

12:11 pm on Friday, July 20, 2012

No bueno. And I don't like Facebook's response. :-/

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Sharon Swanepoel

12:48 pm on Friday, July 20, 2012

I never even thought about this until I read the article. But I'm not that comfortable with it either. It's bad enough when you put your debit or credit card into something and it calls you by name. Imagine walking down the street and having stores call you by name to look at their wares because some company using facial-recognition technology sold them your profile. Yikes.

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Keisha Hall

8:25 am on Saturday, July 21, 2012

I don't like Facebook's response either.

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Karsten Torch

1:33 pm on Monday, July 23, 2012

Eh, who cares. Facebook already has tons of information on us, anyway. And all of our pictures. Now they're just using those same pictures we voluntarily gave them to make it easier for us to tag our pictures? It's not like it really makes it easier for the government to track us. Unless you're logged in under an alian because you're up to nefarius activities. In which case, this probably isn't a bad thing....

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