Facebook will notify you when someone posts your photo, even if they didn’t tag you
Privacy is a growing concern amongst internet denizens and social networks like Facebook have been trying to evolve. Everyone already knows the troubles that can arise from someone tagging you in a photo. Sometimes it’s simply a non-flattering photo, other times it could land you in hot water with a significant other or work place if you’re tagged doing something you shouldn’t be.
But when you are tagged in a photo, you generally have control over how it appears on your profile and if others can see it. So what happens if someone posts a photo of you and doesn’t tag you? There’s no way you’ll ever know… until now.
Facebook announced today that they’re introducing new tools that can notify you when someone uploads a photo of you, even if they never got around to tagging you. It also works whenever someone makes a photo of you their profile photo, which should hopefully cut down on the number of scammy or catfishing accounts running amok on the social network.
Facebook says this feature is powered by the same facial recognition technology they already use to identify faces in photos and suggest tags, but now it’s being a little more proactive. It’s rolling out worldwide (excluding Canada and Europe) over the next few days via a handy on/off switch. If you’ve disabled tagging the feature will be off by default, but if this sounds like a feature you’d like to enable, just make sure you go into your settings and turn it on.
Facebook’s facial recognition isn’t perfect, but it’s interesting to see how they’re expanding to include more applications. A few weeks ago, Facebook announced that users could upload their nude photos in an effort to prevent revenge porn, alerting users if someone ever posted a photo recognized as a match. It was a tough sell, even if Facebook promised that images were being hashed and not viewed by human eyes.
via Facebook