Facebook shutting down facial recognition in the EU, gets stamp of approval from Ireland DPC

Earlier this year, Ireland's Data Protection Commissioner, a body whose decisions impact Facebook's policies in Europe at large, made several recommendations to bring the website in line with regional privacy laws, calling for greater transparency on how users' data is handled and more user control over settings, among other things. The DPC just officially announced that Zuckerberg et al. have for the most part adjusted its policies accordingly. The biggest change involves the facial recognition feature, which attempts to identify Facebook friends in photos and suggest their names for tagging. The social network turned off this functionality for new users in the EU -- and it will be shutting it down entirely by October 15th. It's not like Ireland, home to Facebook's European HQ, is the first to give the site flack about such features: Germany was having none of it when the site introduced facial recognition last summer.

Filed under: Internet

Facebook shutting down facial recognition in the EU, gets stamp of approval from Ireland DPC originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Sep 2012 10:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.