The infamous facial recognition tool on Facebook is now threatened in Germany as it’s violating EU privacy and data protection laws.
Basically the (automatically enabled) photo-tagging feature on Facebook allows a user to scan all of their uploaded pictures via Facebook’s own biometric scanning tools to identify people. This feature can be turned off, but Facebook still has all the uploaded pictures in their database which can be scanned by them regardless.
“If the data were to get into the wrong hands, then someone with a picture taken on a mobile phone could use biometrics to compare the pictures and make an identification,” said  Johannes Caspar, Hamburg Data Protection Supervisor. ”The right to anonymity is in danger.”
“Should Facebook maintain the function, it must ensure that only data from persons who have declared consent to the storage of their biometric facial profiles be stored in the database,” he said.
Hamburg’s Data Protection agency has asked Facebook to stop running the facial recognition program for all German users who have opted out of the photo-tagging feature, otherwise the company could face fines of up to €300,000 (USD 429k/ AED 1.5m).
A Fecbook sopeswoman said, “we will consider the points the Hamburg Data Protection Authority have made about the Photo Tag Suggest feature, but firmly reject any claim that we are not meeting our obligations under European Union data protection law.”
We’ll keep you updated on the case between Germany and Facebook; for thew time being it doesn’t seem that either side will be backing down.
About Taimoor HafeezFrom auditing to editing, I now test and analyze the latest gadgets and games instead of the latest financial statements. Both jobs are equally intense and rewarding. In my free time you'll find me raiding in WoW or engineering in TF2.
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