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Facebook Brings Facial Recognition to Photo Tagging

by Amar Toor on December 16, 2010 at 09:20 AM

Facebook Photo tagging
Over the next few weeks, Facebook will be rolling out a new feature that brings facial recognition technology to the photo tagging process. Here's how it works: Whenever you upload a photo and want to tag a group of friends in it, Facebook will use facial recognition software to generate a list of suggestions, based on similar photos. If, for example, you upload a bunch of photos with the same person in it, you'll only have to identify their face once, and click 'Save Tags.' The site will then automatically tag that person in every other photo, which could save you a lot of time.

If you're a little uncomfortable with the new feature, though, you can disable it under the 'Privacy Settings' tab. Soon, you'll see a 'Suggest photos of me to friends' option, under the 'Customize Settings' menu. Disabling this will prevent Facebook from suggesting your name to friends, meaning that the only way they could tag you would be by manually typing in your name.

The new feature certainly seems ripe for embarrassing suggestions, and, perhaps, some controversy. But Facebook Vice President of Product Chris Cox tells Mashable that the feature will only make suggestions if it has "high confidence" in its guess. Cox did not offer an exact percentage, but we certainly hope it's high. The feature may significantly streamline the photo-tagging process, but if it offers inaccurate, or even offensive suggestions, users may not exactly warm up to it.

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Tags: facebook, facebook photos, FacebookPhotos, FacialRecognition, images, photography, photos, privacy, SocialNetworking, tag, top, web

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