So, here's the weird catch-22. Or perhaps, the illusion of choice.
There are two people who are in a photo. One wishes Facebook to use face recognition, the other does not.
Facebook will run face recognition on the photo regardless, but how will they know who wants to be recognized, and who doesn't?
Simply, they have a model of your face already trained. And they recognize you in photos--you have no say whether or not they will. All this option does is hide the notifications when they do recognize you.
Usually these systems are implemented via a generic face detector that first runs on the whole image, to locate all the faces that are present. After the faces are located, they’re matched against a set of candidates (which I would guess is an enumeration if all your Nth order friends [who don’t opt out of this], to reduce computational complexity).
This isn’t the only possible way to do it, but I believe it’s the most common and effective approach.
So it’s not at all unlikely that when running the identifier, they simply don’t match against people who say no to this. They’d never be recognized at all, and the system would just identify their face as an “unknown” identity.
I cannot say for sure whether or not this is how they implemented it, but it seems likely.
Think about it this way: the photo itself already contains all the information necessary to identify you, and algorithms already exist which allow that information to be easily extracted. No privacy setting in the world will change that, short of the "delete" button on the photo itself (or maybe a way to blur your face).
Therefore, this setting logically _cannot_ change what information Facebook has about you; it can only change how that information is displayed.
Which is why I do not want anybody to make any pictures of me, especially not if they are active on social media. There are exactly two pictures of me online, the one is 30 years old, the other about 10. The quickest way to get me pissed off is to point a camera at me.
Do they have a model of your face already trained, or are they just using a generic facial recognition neural network to compute an embedding vector and then finding identities that are close to that vector in L2 distance or whatever?
If they don't tell anybody who they recognized in the pictures, it should be fine since you will never know? They do a lot more analysis in the background that they never publish anyways
Well your friend took the photo presumably and uploaded it to Facebook. Let's assume that the friend does know about face recognition and does want it enabled for their photos. Surely they have the right?
What about all the face recognition going on in all my Google photos that are automatically uploaded to the cloud? Everyone of the people in my photos has no say in what I do with a photo I took.
I got nearly the same notification, except mine defaulted to off, it said "This setting is off, but you can turn it on any time".
My guess is that they based the setting on another setting. For example there was some photo tagging thing added years ago, and I disabled that. Most of my timeline and tagging settings are set to Custom or require review.
The fact that they notified you means it wasn't exactly silent. I saw this notification and turned it off. I wish it hadn't been opt-out and had been an opt-in thing instead.
How does the opt-out work? Is it simply turning off the notifications or is it also not storing the match when it recognizes your face? Clearly it doesn't know who you are (as an opt-out participant) until it scans the image.
I think this is notification is sort of the opposite of what people think it is.
Facebook has had facial recognition and tag suggestions based on facial recognition for a long time. For example this [1] article from June 2017 explains how to turn it off.
This new notification is about a global on/off switch that disable all facial recognition, because Facebook is going to start doing more than tag suggestions with facial recognition [2][3]. For example they are trying to detect when people are impersonating you online.
The global face recognition setting defaulted to off for me, probably because I had tag suggestions disabled already.
More than a decade ago Mark Zuckerberg said that anyone who gave him a photo of themselves was a "dumb fuck". His entire plan this whole time has been to do exactly this kind of thing (edit: because he thinks it is profit-maximizing), and he thinks you're a dumb fuck (just like me) for uploading your photo to let him use in the maximum-scary-surveillance way.
We should all just get off Facebook. The problem is that you can't leave even after you "delete" your account, and they have your photos tagged and matched to your email even if you never signed up anyway since all your "dumb fuck" friends gave Mark Zuckerberg their email passwords too - so even if you never sign up, your friends already ratted you out and gave up your email and photos anyway.
This is why I think the 'right to be forgotten' legislation might actually be a GOOD thing. Sure, it's some extra work when designing a new system, and lots of legacy systems require expensive rework, and a few twats will abuse the right to have Google redact journalistic information about their personal misadventures from the public sphere. But it's still my private data, so I should have the right to forbid companies I don't trust from storing and processing it. And they should be legally forced to oblige and have processes in place so that such request can be truly honored.
It's not that we naively trust him, we just believe the creepy data gathering is the price to pay for that warm feeling of being connected with pseudo-friends and kinda-acquaintances.
Here’s the press release announcing the new control from December.
> People gave us feedback that they would find it easier to manage face recognition through a simple setting, so we’re pairing these tools with a single “on/off” control. If your tag suggestions setting is currently set to “none,” then your default face recognition setting will be set to “off” and will remain that way until you decide to change it.
True, there is nothing stopping them from running this in the background to make additional linkages between people and places to sell to third parties without having to share where those linkages come from.
I'm imaging a Probability Zero or Black Mirror short where Facebook insists some scammer is using your face and attempts to shut them down. They are unable to log into services because they used Facebook login for convenience. In the end, it turns out the imposter randomly had an identical face and was perhaps a long list twin.
I have to assume that this UX is intentionally awful:
Go to Settings.
Go to More.
Tap Privacy Shortcuts.
Tap More Settings.
Tap Face Recognition.
Tap Do you want Facebook to be able to recognize you in photos and videos?
Select No if you don't want to let Facebook recognize you in photos and videos.
Also, this set of steps doesn't work on the desktop browser. I don't see More or Privacy Shortcuts in My Settings, only in the ? menu at the top (clicked by accident). Once you go to More, I don't see any section for Face Recognition anywhere on the page.
I wish I could activate it once to see all the previous photos of me that aren't tagged, then turn it off so it doesn't do it in the background. Not that its any safer, but it would make me feel better about it.
As the top comment suggests, if Facebook runs face recognition on pictures of you and those pictures contain other people, there is no guarantee that they have opted into the program as well. You wouldn't just be making a choice for yourself.
Did anyone else notice that FB mentioned accessibility as one of the reasons that people should opt-in to face recognition? I wonder whether this was something that the FB Accessibility team actually asked for, or whether this is just a do-good sounding excuse for a program that FB wants to (clandestinely, apparently) launch.
[+] [-] bjt2n3904|8 years ago|reply
There are two people who are in a photo. One wishes Facebook to use face recognition, the other does not.
Facebook will run face recognition on the photo regardless, but how will they know who wants to be recognized, and who doesn't?
Simply, they have a model of your face already trained. And they recognize you in photos--you have no say whether or not they will. All this option does is hide the notifications when they do recognize you.
[+] [-] electrograv|8 years ago|reply
This isn’t the only possible way to do it, but I believe it’s the most common and effective approach.
So it’s not at all unlikely that when running the identifier, they simply don’t match against people who say no to this. They’d never be recognized at all, and the system would just identify their face as an “unknown” identity.
I cannot say for sure whether or not this is how they implemented it, but it seems likely.
[+] [-] Ajedi32|8 years ago|reply
Therefore, this setting logically _cannot_ change what information Facebook has about you; it can only change how that information is displayed.
[+] [-] jacquesm|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kobayashi|8 years ago|reply
In addition, this is not news in the sense that this is not _new_. Anecdotally, this feature has been active for many for months, if not years.
[+] [-] denzil_correa|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bamboozled|8 years ago|reply
Doesn't feel right.
[+] [-] cycrutchfield|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yorby|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] znpy|8 years ago|reply
If they have enough data to recognize you, they will. They just won't tag you.
[+] [-] hrie282|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] dalore|8 years ago|reply
What about all the face recognition going on in all my Google photos that are automatically uploaded to the cloud? Everyone of the people in my photos has no say in what I do with a photo I took.
[+] [-] antoncohen|8 years ago|reply
My guess is that they based the setting on another setting. For example there was some photo tagging thing added years ago, and I disabled that. Most of my timeline and tagging settings are set to Custom or require review.
[+] [-] codemac|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jugg1es|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrtksn|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] x2f10|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rmc|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tempodox|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] antoncohen|8 years ago|reply
Facebook has had facial recognition and tag suggestions based on facial recognition for a long time. For example this [1] article from June 2017 explains how to turn it off.
This new notification is about a global on/off switch that disable all facial recognition, because Facebook is going to start doing more than tag suggestions with facial recognition [2][3]. For example they are trying to detect when people are impersonating you online.
The global face recognition setting defaulted to off for me, probably because I had tag suggestions disabled already.
[1] https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-disable-facebooks-facial-rec...
[2] https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/12/managing-your-identity-...
[3] http://www.firstpost.com/tech/news-analysis/facebook-face-re...
[+] [-] codedokode|8 years ago|reply
The creators of the app (FindFace) that indexes face data do not have any respect for privacy and boast how good their app is.
I think browsers should issue a warning before uploading photo to internet. Maybe then less people will want to publish their photo online.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/14/russian-photog...
[2] https://birdinflight.com/ru/vdohnovenie/fotoproect/06042016-...
[+] [-] cryptoz|8 years ago|reply
We should all just get off Facebook. The problem is that you can't leave even after you "delete" your account, and they have your photos tagged and matched to your email even if you never signed up anyway since all your "dumb fuck" friends gave Mark Zuckerberg their email passwords too - so even if you never sign up, your friends already ratted you out and gave up your email and photos anyway.
[+] [-] vesinisa|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ikeyany|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grifball|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] liberte82|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trequartista|8 years ago|reply
Note the features we may add later part. Facebook is getting creepier by the day.
[+] [-] guhcampos|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] acd|8 years ago|reply
A law enforcement json API
[+] [-] staplers|8 years ago|reply
A majority of the population's data is already there, they can survive for decades by renting out that data.
[+] [-] krrrh|8 years ago|reply
> People gave us feedback that they would find it easier to manage face recognition through a simple setting, so we’re pairing these tools with a single “on/off” control. If your tag suggestions setting is currently set to “none,” then your default face recognition setting will be set to “off” and will remain that way until you decide to change it.
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/12/managing-your-identity-...
[+] [-] devilmoon|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coding123|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Buge|8 years ago|reply
https://www.pcworld.com/article/213894/Facebook_Adds_Facial_...
[+] [-] mncolinlee|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] igotsideas|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tucif|8 years ago|reply
https://www.facebook.com/about/basics/manage-your-privacy/fa...
[+] [-] web007|8 years ago|reply
Go to Settings.
Go to More.
Tap Privacy Shortcuts.
Tap More Settings.
Tap Face Recognition.
Tap Do you want Facebook to be able to recognize you in photos and videos?
Select No if you don't want to let Facebook recognize you in photos and videos.
Also, this set of steps doesn't work on the desktop browser. I don't see More or Privacy Shortcuts in My Settings, only in the ? menu at the top (clicked by accident). Once you go to More, I don't see any section for Face Recognition anywhere on the page.
[+] [-] soared|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] khedoros1|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maleta|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adamrezich|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cpcallen|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Barrin92|8 years ago|reply
As the top comment suggests, if Facebook runs face recognition on pictures of you and those pictures contain other people, there is no guarantee that they have opted into the program as well. You wouldn't just be making a choice for yourself.
[+] [-] gnicholas|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mwnz|8 years ago|reply