Facebook’s internal app allows identification of coworkers

Despite facing several privacy issues, Facebook is experimenting with new things. A new matter has come into the limelight.

Facebook’s face recognition feature allows employees to identify their colleagues.

Facebook rolled out this feature aiming to replace the ‘Tag Suggestions’ feature.

Earlier, Facebook users used to receive a notification when they were tagged in a photo. But, Facebook wants to replace it with the face recognition feature.

Business Insider reported that Facebook designed a facial recognition application between 2015 and 2016.

The app can scan the faces of identifiable people through its facial recognition system. But, later it had been discontinued in 2016.

A spokesperson from Facebook in a statement said that it is normal for the company to develop apps for internal use to learn about new technologies.

He added that the app was only available for Facebook employees and could only identify the employees and their friends who had enabled face recognition feature.

He also added that facial recognition is an option for users and those who do not want their faces to be detected can opt-out.

This face recognition feature was first introduced by Facebook in December 2017.

Facebook says that users who turned on Face Recognition would be notified if someone uploads their photo even without tagging them.

However, many people are criticizing Facebook for experimenting with such features. They are worried about their privacy.

It was reported that a tool developed by Facebook’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) research team to track the facial recognition system recognized a person mistakenly. It can read vital features of a subject even in live videos.

Several reports express their concern over the misuse of technology and loss of privacy with such systems.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay  ( Free for commercial use )

Image Reference: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/hands-smartphone-facebook-1167617/