Facebook in facial recognition privacy row

Facebook has again been criticised by privacy campaigners after quietly launching a new system that automatically identifies people in photos.

The 'Tag Suggestions' feature uses facial recognition technology to analyse any photos uploaded and speed up the process of labelling friends and acquaintances.

Facebook started testing the new feature in the US last December, but it has now been enabled across the social network's more than 500 million worldwide users.

Marc Rotenberg, president of the non-profit privacy advocacy group Electronic Privacy Information Centre, expressed concern that other personally identifiable information, such as email addresses, could become associated with Facebook photos.

Rotenberg also questioned Facebook's decision to automatically enable the Tag Suggestions feature without first notifying its users.

"I'm not sure that's the setting that people would want to choose. A better option would be to let people opt in," he said.

Graham Cluley, of the British internet security firm Sophos, also criticised the move and accused Facebook of "eroding the online privacy of its users by stealth".

He added: "Many people feel distinctly uncomfortable about a site like Facebook learning what they look like, and using that information without their permission."

Following criticism of Tag Suggestions, Facebook said: "We should have been more clear with people during the rollout process when this became available to them."

The company stressed that the facial recognition technology only applies to newly-uploaded photos, and users can disable the feature by turning off the "suggest photos of me to friends" option on their Privacy Settings page.

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