Germany asks Facebook to disable facial recognition
August 5, 2011 by admin
Filed under Lingerie Events
CBR Staff Writer
Published 05 August 2011
Hamburg commissioner for data protection and freedom of information raises privacy concerns
Germany has asked social networking company Facebook to disable its recently introduced facial recognition feature and also to delete any previously stored data, citing data protection laws.
Facebook had introduced the feature last December. It said that facial-recognition technology made it easier for people to tag photos of friends.
It had said, “When you or a friend upload new photos, we use face recognition software — similar to that found in many photo editing tools — to match your new photos to other photos you’re tagged in.
“We group similar photos together and, whenever possible, suggest the name of the friend in the photos.”
The company had said that users could opt out of the feature.
Facebook had said, “If for any reason you don’t want your name to be suggested, you will be able to disable suggested tags in your Privacy Settings…Your name will no longer be suggested in photo tags, though friends can still tag you manually.”
However, security firms and privacy campaigners have called it a data collection campaign.
Hamburg commissioner for data protection and freedom of information John Caspar raised privacy concerns in a letter to Facebook.
Caspar said Facebook has collected a huge data adding that the opt-out option misled users as data still remains with Facebook.
A Facebook spokesman in Berlin told The New York Times that the company met all obligations under European laws.
The spokesman said, “We will consider the points the Hamburg Data Protection Authority have made about the photo tag suggest feature but firmly reject any claim that we are not meeting our obligations under European Union data protection law.”
