How to stop Facebook from ID’ing your face in photos

Facebook just switched on a new feature capable of pinpointing your face in newly uploaded pictures—perfect for making it easier for friends to tag you in snapshots. Amazing? Yes, but also a tad creepy. Here’s how to keep Facebook’s new facial-recognition technology from picking you out of a crowd.

Researchers at security firm Sophos posted a privacy alert Tuesday afternoon about Facebook’s new photo feature, which was announced late last year but is only being activated now.

The facial recognition feature won’t immediately tag you in a photo, mind you—but it will show a group of presumed close-ups of your face to photo-uploading friends for rapid-fire tagging. Yikes.

In its alert Tuesday, Sophos notes that Facebook has set user privacy settings to allow facial recognition by default. In other words, unless you manually turn the feature off, your smiling face will be presented to your snap-happy Facebook pals for instant tagging.

Don’t like the idea? Luckily, the process for tweaking your privacy settings to block the new feature is pretty simple:

1. Go to your Facebook profile and click the Account link in the upper-right corner.
2. Click Privacy Settings, and the find and click the little “Customize settings” link beneath the main column of privacy options.
3. Under the “Things others share” section, find “Suggest Photos of me to friends” and click the Edit Settings button.
4. In the pop-up that appears, click the Enabled button and select the Disabled option.

That’s it—unless, of course, you like the idea of your friends being able to tag you immediately in compromising spy shots.

So, what do you think of Facebook’s new facial recognition technology: nifty, or creepy?

Source: Sophos

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