By Afolabi Oluwatobi, Lagos
Yesterday Facebook announced new, optional tools to help people better manage their identity on Facebook using face recognition. Powered by the same technology used to suggest friends you may want to tag in photos or videos, these new features help you find photos that you’re not tagged in and help you detect when others might be attempting to use your image as their profile picture. its also introduces a way for people who are visually impaired to know more about who is in the photos they encounter on Facebook.
People gave feedback that they would find it easier to manage face recognition through a simple setting, so these tools have been paired with a single “on/off” control. If your tag suggestions setting is currently set to “none,” then your default face recognition setting will be set to “off” and will remain that way until you decide to change it.
Know When You Appear in Photos on Facebook
Now, if you’re in a photo and are part of the audience for that post, you’ll be notified you, even if you haven’t been tagged. You’re in control of your image on Facebook and can make choices such as whether to tag yourself, leave yourself untagged, or reach out to the person who posted the photo if you have concerns about it. Facebook always respect the privacy setting people select when posting a photo on Facebook (whether that’s friends, public or a custom audience), so you won’t receive a notification if you’re not in the audience.
Profile Photo Safety
“we want people to feel confident when they post pictures of themselves on Facebook so we’ll soon begin using face recognition technology to let people know when someone else uploads a photo of them as their profile picture. We’re doing this to prevent people from impersonating others on Facebook.” said Joaquin Quiñonero Candela, Director, Applied Machine Learning Facebook
How it Works and the Choices You Have
Since 2010, face recognition technology has helped bring people closer together on Facebook. The technology analyzes the pixels in photos you’re already tagged in and generates a string of numbers we called template. When photos and videos are uploaded to facebook’s systems, those images are compared to the template.
You control whether Facebook can recognize you in photos and videos. Soon a simple on/off switch will be added instead of settings for individual features that use face recognition technology. “We designed this as an on/off switch because people gave us feedback that they prefer a simpler control than having to decide for every single feature using face recognition technology”Joaquin said.
To learn more about all of these features, visit the Help Center or your account settings.
These new features are available in most places, except in Canada and the EU where face recognition technology aren’t currently offered.
