Search engines that can find pictures of people using an image of their face are not new, but their use has not been widespread so far. There are some search tools of varying reliability that look for your own photos or images like the one you have uploaded in video and Apple’s iPhoto uses the technology to help you sort your pics in iPhoto. So far so innocuous…
But the implications of facial recoginition search are a little disturbing. In theory it means that images of someone can be found that even they don’t know about. Ever wandered into the background of a photo taken at a nightclub or walking down the street?
It doesn’t take too much imagination to work out how this stuff could be embarrassing…
Well, now Facebook has rolled it out as a feature and – as per usual – has done so on an opt-in basis. That means you need to tell them if you don’t want this to happen, as All Facebook puts it: “your friends will be prompted with various images that you haven’t yet been tagged in and ask them to tag you.”
All Facebook suggests you do the following to opt-out of this:
- Head to your Facebook Privacy Settings (in the drop-down “Account” menu on the upper right hand side of your Facebook home page).
- Find the “suggest photos of me to friends setting” (under “things others share”) and click on the button.
- Once the “Photos Suggest Tags” box is open then click on the drop-down menu marked “Enabled” and change it to “Disabled”.
If the options above are not available to you then the feature has not yet been rolled out on your account (Facebook is rolling out this feature worldwide). In this case it may be a good idea to set a diary reminder to check in a couple of days – or you can wait until someone has helpfully tagged you in a (hopefully unembarrassing) photo…
