Facebook Inc. is opening up its face recognition technology to all users with an option to opt-out, and discontinued a related feature called “Tag Suggestions.”
The face recognition setting, available to some Facebook users since December 2017, has additional functions such as notifying account holders if their profile photo is used by someone else. People who opt in to the new setting will still have tag suggestions automatically generated about them.
Facebook’s face recognition technology has been at the center of a privacy-related lawsuit since 2015. The lawsuit by Illinois users accused the company of violating the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act, claiming it illegally collected and stored biometric data of millions of users without their consent. Last month, a federal appeals court rejected Facebook’s effort to undo the class-action status of the lawsuit.
“We have always disclosed our use of face recognition technology and that people can turn it on or off at any time,” Facebook said last month in a statement. The company also added that it continues to engage with privacy experts, academics, regulators, and its users on face recognition and its control options.
