The most famous and widespread social network in the world has activated the option for facial recognition also in Europe, after having withdrawn it in 2012, and at the same time warnings have been sent to users with the possibility of choosing whether to activate this possibility or not. "If you activate this setting, we will use facial recognition technology to understand when you may be present in photos, videos and the camera to protect you from strangers using your photos, find images where you are present but have not tagged you, communicate to people with visual disabilities who is present in the photo or video and suggest to people who they might want to tag ", writes Facebook in the message that is starting to arrive these days to Italian and European users, to then be extended to the rest of the world. In recent days, the group led by Mark Zuckerberg, in view of the new European regulation on privacy, has announced news on this front, including the limitation of the number of actions that under-15s can perform on the platform without parental approval. Among these is the return of facial recognition, which it had renounced in 2012 after concerns expressed by various consumer groups regarding privacy. And on which a class action action by a group of consumers recently authorized by a federal judge hangs on.
Users receive a simple notification that the feature is already active on their account. Of course, the note emphasizes that it can be deactivated at any time. But here comes the beauty! When users try to do so, by accessing their settings, different messages try to dissuade it. The reasons are of the type: facial recognition is essential if someone uses your photographs for malicious purposes, only in this way is it possible to recognize the problem and protect your privacy.
Basically we should give away biometric data - particularly sensitive - in exchange for protecting our own data. Something obviously does not come back. For this reason, several users have started their protests on the Web. Like the journalist Jennifer Baker, who on Twitter accuses Facebook of making fun of users - with the scarecrow of protection - trying to acquire new data to be able to resell.