Facebook Photo Tagging With New Facial Recognition Software: What You Need To Do About Your Privacy

Like many others, I use Facebook. Perhaps you do, too. A couple months ago, I noticed that Facebook uses facial recognition software. When uploading one or several photographs, the Facebook website automatically attempted to identify or "tag" the people in my photos from my list of "friends." I have mixed feelings about this feature.

Before, you had to manually tag each person in every photo you uploaded. Now, the upload process is a little faster and easier as the Facebook site automatically "tags" the people in your photos. How accurate is the tagging? I address that in detail later in this post.

For those unfamiliar with Facebook: when uploading photos, the Facebook website automatically tries to identify and "tag" the people in your photos from the list of people you are connected with as "friends." You can accept the suggested tags, modify them, or skip the automatic photo-tagging step entirely, which deletes any tags. The Facebook photo tagging page with facial recognition look like this:

The automatic photo-tagging feature during photo upload is a convenience that can save time and minimize keystrokes; especially when the same people appear in multiple photos. When you post the photos, Facebook sends status messages to your friends that are tagged in your photos. The message includes a photo thumbnail and a link, so your tagged friends can view the photos. Your tagged friends can delete their "tags" in the photos, if desired.

I like the photo tagging feature because it produces status and Notification messages that make it easy for your tagged friends to access the photos. This is helpful for people with many "friends" or News Feeds with heavy message volume, making it easy to miss some messages. It's also helpful to alert infrequent Facebook users.

Facebook does not offer its members the option to approve photo tags about themselves before the photos are posted. Tagged members can only visit the photo and delete the tag after the fact.

I noticed that the tagging is far from 100% accurate. For example, the Facebook facial recognition software regularly confused my wife and my daughter, and repeatedly suggested one instead of the other. So, if you have family members (or friends) that look alike, this new Facebook feature may not operate as accurately as you'd expect. My advice: check the tagging suggestions for accuracy, and don't blindly accept all auto-tagging suggestions by Facebook.

The Sophos Naked Security blog reported about Facebook's facial recognition software:

"When Facebook revealed last year it was introducing facial recognition technology to help users tag their friends in photographs, they gave the functionality to North American users only. Most of the rest of us found the option in our privacy settings was "not yet available"... Well, now might be a good time to check your Facebook privacy settings as many Facebook users are reporting that the site has enabled the option in the last few days without giving users any notice."

So, you need to check your new privacy settings for photo tagging. To check your privacy settings, within Facebook select "Account > Privacy Settings." On the next page, select the "Customize Settings" link in the center of the page. On the next page, scroll down to the "Photos and videos I'm tagged in" privacy option and set it to "Friends Only;" or click "Customize" and open the drop-down menu and select "Only Me." Caution: this privacy setting only controls the photos in your profile. It does not control the photos of you that your friends post in their photo albums.

Next, there is the "Suggest photos of me to friends" security option. (Like everything else in Facebook, there are multiple privacy buttons scattered across several pages.) You probably will want to set this to "Disabled." Caution: even when you disable this feature, it won't stop your friends from tagging you in photos. It just stops the facial recognition software from suggesting your name in their (and your) photos.

Sophos highlighted the troublesome issue: Facebook forces its members who don't want to be tagged in photos to manually opt-out or delete the "tag" in each and every photo their "friends" have tagged them in -- even with the new privacy options. If your friends upload a lot of photos, then this quickly becomes unmanageable or impossible -- and you effectively have none or greatly reduced privacy on Facebook.

Surprised? I'm not, as it seems to be in Facebook's DNA for it to regularly find ways to leak your personal information despite your privacy settings.

Caution: you need to know that your friends' privacy settings with photos matter. How? According to the Facebook Help Center:

"I am able to view a non-friend's entire photo album by clicking through from a photo that my friend is tagged in. Is this violating their privacy settings?
It's important to remember that the "tagging" feature does not allow users to see photos that they wouldn't normally be able to see. If you're able to see photos that a non-friend uploaded through a photo that they tagged one of your friends in, it is because this person has most likely set his or her album privacy to the "Everyone" setting (so that everyone on the site is able to view it)."

"How does tagging a friend in a photo affect the photo’s privacy setting?
If you have the box checked next to "Let friends of people tagged in my photos and posts see them" on your Privacy Settings page, then friends of the tagged person will be able to see the photo. If this box isn't checked, the photo’s privacy setting will not be expanded. However, the person who is tagged will be able to see the photo, regardless of the photo’s privacy setting."

To change this setting, select "Account > Privacy Settings." On the next page, un-check the box next to "Let friends of people tagged in my photos and posts see them." I have always had this box unchecked in my privacy settings. Why? I did not want the expanded setting to override my privacy options. f you check this box it increases the the number of people who can see the photos you post. I prefer the narrow, limited privacy setting so I control who sees the photos I post on Facebook.

Similarly, if your friends have set their profile and photo album privacy settings to "Friends of friends," then many more people than you may realize can view photos of you. I have always had my privacy settings at "Friends Only," and hope that all of my friends do the same. Sadly, some don't and I often see photos posted by friends of my Facebook "friends" in my News Feed.

If your Facebook "friends" are sloppy with their privacy settings, and have set their Facebook profile and photo albums privacy settings to "Everyone," then any and all of the 600+ million Facebook members can view their photos (and any photos with you in them).

All of this can be embarrassing if your boss or clients are one of your Facebook "friends." While you may not post risky photos of yourself, your friends might. If you called in sick to work to attend a social event instead, well... the combined automatic photo tagging and "Let friends of people tagged..." privacy setting make it easier for those risky photos to be seen by a wider audience -- including your boss.

A simpler solution: don't "friend" your boss on Facebook.

A better solution: Facebook should provide members with a global opt-out privacy setting from tagging, so that you can't be tagged in any photos. This proposed privacy feature would automatically inform the member uploading the photo of your preference not to be tagged in any photos on Facebook.

A stronger version of this proposed privacy setting would require approvals for any photo tags by the person being tagged. Facebook already requires approvals by photo owners when you try to tag a photo posted by somebody who is not a "friend." (See: What is Photo Tagging?) So, Facebook could implement approvals system-wide if we users demanded it. An even stronger version of this feature could prevent a member from uploading an offending photo.

Will Facebook add any of the proposed photo-tagging approval features? Should it? What are your views of the new facial recognition software and photo tagging features? Have you experienced accuracy problems, too? Share your opinions below.

Comments

[Hoarse]

F*ck this, really. It's been frustrating trying to scramble and untag myself in particularly embarrassing pictures that some boobhead always tags despite me telling them not to.

And facebook is pretty fine with this apparently. Despite the very serious consequences of losing jobs, breaking up jobs and families, cyber-bullying, and pretty much horror stories of completely ruining lives.

If facebook can't even listen to that, f*ck em. Some friends of mine are already refusing to even touch it. Only reason I held on to it this long is to keep in contact with my family as they're scattered around the globe. I better stick to instant messaging and phonecalls then, eh?

[Marc]

This sounds creepy and I don't like the fact that like always, Facebook forces you to opt out of a new feature that they didn't announce that it was implemented and the only way you would find out is from reading computer privacy related sites online since the news doesn't cover this kind of stuff. Like always they make it difficult to opt out of their new features because they would rather you not protect your privacy.