You Have a Facebook Facial Recognition Number

A unique number has been assigned to the face of each account.  From the help page:

Facial Recognition Data – A unique number based on a comparison of the photos you’re tagged in. We use this data to help others tag you in photos.

We currently use facial recognition software that uses an algorithm to calculate a unique number (“template”) based on someone’s facial features, like the distance between the eyes, nose and ears. This template is based on your profile pictures and photos you’ve been tagged in on Facebook

This is “Tag Suggest“.

Last week, I downloaded my Facebook account archive, to see what was included in it (how to here).  Below is my face when I found this face number, imagination going wild.

Because really, Facebook is the world’s largest biometric database.

And its entire contents were not only submitted voluntarily, but tagged and identified as well. Someone is going to sleep laughing each night.

Facebook updated their privacy policy at the end of the summer, to account for some more powerful software, for a better “Tag Suggest”.

Some countries are not okay with this, Germany’s pretty upset. They’ve been pushing back for a while wait, I may have blogged this hang on….. yup here: October ’12. There’s much debate about to who and how access is granted, to this database.

I’m not 100%, and the test I conducted was only so-so, but it appears that in Canada, we can’t turn off “Tag Suggest”.

Here’s the Facebook help page, “Turn OFF Tag Suggest“. It says the last item below is where to disable the feature (purple asterisk).

Below are my settings, “unavailable”.

Ugh. Unavailable. Eye roll.

Here tag this.

 

 

Trying to Defeat Facial Recognition Software

To be clear: I don’t know if this actually works. 

Makes sense though, eh?  I do know though, that this is why you are instructed not to smile in your drivers licence or passport photo – you don’t walk around smiling.

To be serious: you realize that everything you post online is likely added to a face database.  Facebook is the perfect example.

This summer, US Senator Al Franken said, “Facebook may have created the world’s largest privately held database of face prints, without the explicit knowledge of its users”.  

And people are getting upset.  Germany is suing Facebook over their use of facial recognition software, saying it’s illegal.  They’re also ordering the site to stop sharing their faces database with third-party applications.

Apple and Google do it too, but their services are opt-IN, Facebook’s default is opt-OUT.

Has it ever occurred to you to opt-out?  Maybe.  What about a housewife in Iowa?  Not a chance.  And with over 60 billion photos on Facebook’s servers…

Learn more:

– CNET – about Facebook’s database

– Businessweek – thoughts from the Senetor mentioned above

– Slate – the FBI gave its facial recognition software, to law enforcement agencies

– Gizmodo – Kinect can read your facial expressions

– VentureBeat – digital billboards are coming – they read your face, determine your mood, then make their pitch

– Gizmodo – Intel is working on your TV reading your mood for ads

And I’ve got some scary apps bookmarked here, I’ll show you in video; it’s more effective demonstrated in video.