Facebook Privacy is in the news again – this time with a new “feature” called Facial Recognition.
A couple of months ago I wrote a blog post on Facebook Privacy Settings as I felt strongly about the fact that many people still did not understand the settings, or know how to fully protect their privacy, or even why they should.
I regularly meet with small business owners who are willing to explore the benefits of social media for business and embrace this new way of marketing online. I absolutely admire them them for stepping outside their normal means of interacting with their customers, however the biggest concern I regularly hear expressed, is about privacy, ie. the need to protect personal privacy and keep it separate from business.
So the first thing I do is ensure their Facebook Personal Profile privacy settings (and those of their family, particularly their children) are set appropriately.
Meanwhile, Facebook is ever-changing and there’s been some recent talk in the online space over the rolling out of the Tag Suggestions which effectively means that faces are being scanned with facial recognition software.
As a photo is uploaded, the faces in the photos are compared with those faces of your Facebook friends, and there appears to be a match you will be prompted to tag the image. Of course the tagging is optional by the person loading the photo, and the tagged person is notified and can then un-tag themselves if they so wish.
In some ways, this doesn’t really seem like a big deal, after all, your friends know who you are anyway, right? However the bigger picture here is the potential of a large database in Facebook of who we are and what we look like. A little more concerning.
The reason behind the Tag Suggestions option is to make it easier to tag friends in photos, without having to type in their names, but if you want to opt out of the feature.
How to Disable this Feature
It is easy to disable the facial recognition suggestion to your friends, however it can be difficult to find – it is within the privacy settings under “Suggest Photos of me to Friends”:
- Go into Account and Privacy Settings
- Under Sharing on Facebook, click “customize settings”
- Under “Things others share” and “Suggest photos of me to friends” – click on Edit Settings
- Choose “Disabled”
Because you are automatically opted in to this new feature, it is important to disable it if you do not wish.
Don’t forget to check out all the other privacy settings while you are there.
