Facebook’s facial recognition software could break the law!
What do you think about Facebook’s new facial recognition software? Creepy and uncomfortable or useful and cool? Well – senior officials in Germany have decided that the facial recognition software breaks both German and European law. Germany is very strict on personal information after such information abuse was widespread during the Nazi regime.
You may not have tried the feature yourself, but it uses facial recognition technology (such as eye distance and shape) as a way to match newly uploaded photos with suggestions of the names of those of who to tag them in.
Senior officials have asked Facebook to shut down the software in Germany as the information on the faces of Facebook users is stored without the person’s consent. The law says that normally a company has to ask a user if they want their information stored or not and then they are not allowed to store it if the person says no. Facebook does not ask this, but goes ahead and stores the information. Facebook’s defence is that users are allowed to change their settings to opt-out.
Facebook has been given two weeks to draft a response and then German officials are going to seek legal action through the European Union.
