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.