The use of biometrics for personal identification is one of the most reliable systems in existence; being the facial patterns the ones that can offer the best results. Facebook introduced facial recognition for photographs in June, making it easier to tag friends and acquaintances when uploading photos. And of course, it has reopened the ongoing debate about the loss of control of user privacy on social networks.
Now the system scans the faces of a new image that is incorporated, searches through the photographs that have been uploaded previously and if it matches the basic features of the traits of the new image, suggests direct tagging of that person.
Every month, 3 billion new images are added to Facebook and more than 100 billion tags are added daily, bringing the new auto-tagging feature to the largest and most comprehensive database in the world.
The problem begins in that Facebook has activated facial recognition by default and its identification will be suggested automatically, unless the user navigates through the privacy options of his profile, being something unknown to most according to experts. The same was previously true for public or private profile options.
Germany has been the first country to have asked it to deactivate the service and delete the data, arguing in a violation of the regulations on Data Protection by giving users misleading and contradictory information. In addition, Google and Apple are testing this technology. It is expected that the European authorities in this matter of the EU member countries will address this issue after the summer in order to analyze whether it really complies with the law; which at first seems not.
Audea Information Security
Iván OntañónRamos
Legal Department
www.audea.com
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