
Facebook turned on face recognition silently - neelkadia
https://imgur.com/a/tK8eW
======
bjt2n3904
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.

~~~
jacquesm
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.

~~~
kelnos
I find that a little bit sad. Both of my parents have passed away (fairly
young), and they were somewhat camera-shy when they were alive (not for the
same reasons you are, but the result is the same). I have barely a handful of
photos of them, and that's often a source of disappointment and sadness for
me.

I get that rampant data collection is unacceptable, and companies are terribly
poor stewards of our personal data, but at the end of the day I have precious
little in a visual sense with which to remember my parents.

I think it's entirely reasonable to request that your friends not post
pictures of you on social media, though, and get pissed at them when they
ignore your wishes.

~~~
ACow_Adonis
Just as a curious observation, i wonder whether that sadness and
disappointment would have been around before cameras and photos were invented.

After all, there was of course a time when no one had photos of their parents
or their family.

~~~
kelnos
Good point. It's hard to be sad about something that doens't exist and you
can't fathom as a possible technology. Commissioning painted portraits were
certainly a thing before photography, but I assume you had to be decently well
off to afford that, and of course that's going to capture you in a staged
setting, nothing remotely candid.

------
antoncohen
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.

~~~
Raphmedia
Countries laws? Are you in Europe perhaps?

~~~
gpsz
Mine was off by default, and I'm in the US. I think it was based on the older
face recognition setting which I disabled when it first came out.

------
jugg1es
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.

~~~
mrtksn
There's no notification unless you visit Facebook.com, that I no longer do
regularly.

~~~
Gabriel_Martin
I saw it in the app. So this is not accurate.

~~~
cryptoz
Was it a push notification? Or did you have to open the app to see it?

It's silent unless there was a proactive message to you from Facebook that
your face will start to be recognized. This facial recognition happens even
when you're not using the app.

So Facebook is waiting for you to take action before telling you anything.
That is not proactive, it is silent.

What if you don't go on Facebook any more but have an account? You'd never
know this was happening.

~~~
bfred_it
They warned me that they activated it, so it wasn't _silent_ , it was just
_opt-out_ (not that it's particularly better, but let's use non-clickbait
terms)

~~~
cryptoz
It may be silent for some people and you're intentionally ignoring that. For
someone who has an account but does not regularly log in, this change is
silent. Yes, you saw the message, but that was by chance. Many others will
have this feature silently enabled without their knowledge.

~~~
basch
"I didnt get any mail. I also havent checked my mailbox for packages."

"I didnt get your email. I have not logged into my account lately."

It seems like semantics. You expect facebook to send an EXTERNAL notification
to an operating system like ios/android or to an email provider like
gmail/hotmail. Other people consider it not silent for facebook to make sure
it shows up in their newsfeed.

------
antoncohen
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.

[1] [https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-disable-facebooks-facial-
rec...](https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-disable-facebooks-facial-recognition-
feature-2487265)

[2] [https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/12/managing-your-
identity-...](https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/12/managing-your-identity-on-
facebook-with-face-recognition-technology/)

[3] [http://www.firstpost.com/tech/news-analysis/facebook-face-
re...](http://www.firstpost.com/tech/news-analysis/facebook-face-recognition-
optional-tool-is-widely-rolling-out-to-users-but-raises-a-lot-of-
concerns-4369533.html)

------
codedokode
Russian photographer took photos of random people in the subway in Saint-
Petersburg and later could easily find their social network profiles [1] [2]

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...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/14/russian-photographer-
yegor-tsvetkov-identifies-strangers-facial-recognition-app)

[2]
[https://birdinflight.com/ru/vdohnovenie/fotoproect/06042016-...](https://birdinflight.com/ru/vdohnovenie/fotoproect/06042016-face-
big-data.html)

------
cryptoz
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.

~~~
vesinisa
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.

~~~
tcd
Yeah, if you think Facebook would EVER honour a system like that then I have
many, many bridges in stock for you :)

To most people, flicking a bit from 0 to 1 is enough to convince them your
data is "deleted", however, in the database, what people never see, is that it
the column name is actually "hidden".

:)

------
grifball
"Help protect from strangers using your photo" Ironic

~~~
liberte82
Ironic. They could save others from abusing your privacy, but not themselves.

------
trequartista
"This setting is on, but you can turn it off any time, which applies to
features we may add later".

Note the features we may add later part. Facebook is getting creepier by the
day.

------
guhcampos
You can hardly call it "silent" while screenshotting their disclaimer about
it.

------
acd
So link surveillance cameras to the Facebook face recognition and cell phone
location data of users and law enforcement will be so much easier.

A law enforcement json API

~~~
staplers
As Facebook's user rate declines, I genuinely believe they'll start generating
larger and larger revenue from this exact thing.

A majority of the population's data is already there, they can survive for
decades by renting out that data.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
And people will have the FBI going through their mail because an algorithm
written by someone who lived by "move fast and break things" flagged them as a
commie (or whatever the equivalent is 30yr from now) over some combination of
things they posted in high school.

If you spread incompetence around just right the end result is approximately
the same as malice.

------
krrrh
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.

[https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/12/managing-your-
identity-...](https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/12/managing-your-identity-on-
facebook-with-face-recognition-technology/)

------
devilmoon
This has always been active ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

~~~
coding123
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.

~~~
coding123
Plus if you opt out you're only opting out of the social aspects of this
recognition, not the revenue models behind it.

~~~
fenwick67
Thank you for pointing this out. They don't claim that they won't recognize
your face if you opt out... they just won't suggest it to your friends.

------
mncolinlee
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.

------
igotsideas
If facial recognition bothers you enough to be paranoid, I would highly
suggest deleting all Facebook products.

------
tucif
Here is the facebook site explaining how this works/will work.

[https://www.facebook.com/about/basics/manage-your-
privacy/fa...](https://www.facebook.com/about/basics/manage-your-privacy/face-
recognition)

~~~
web007
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.

~~~
khedoros1
I can click the little arrow, go to settings, and there's a "Face Recognition"
entry in the sidebar, between "Language" and "Notifications".

This is on the desktop website. Sounds like it's hidden deeper if you visit
from a phone?

~~~
eschulz
Yes, but for me instead of "Face Recognition" it's under "Timeline and Tagging
Settings", and then it's the third suggestion under "Tagging".

~~~
web007
I don't see anything but a divider between "Language" and "Notifications", and
for me the only "face" anywhere on the "Timeline and Tagging" page is
"Facebook".

Even on mobile the set of steps they published doesn't work. "More Settings"
leads to a generic settings page with no "face" as well.

------
soared
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.

~~~
khedoros1
Are you sure it's not going in the background anyhow? I thought they've been
using facial recognition to tag pictures for years...

------
maleta
Algorithm is good, but not best. Facebook is offering me to tag my dad on my
own pictures. :v [https://imgur.com/a/fqDGS](https://imgur.com/a/fqDGS)

~~~
adamrezich
it's like a weird dystopian complement to your father

------
cpcallen
I am still waiting for this feature in the UK, but European courts keep
blocking it. It pisses me off: I should be able to opt-in if I want to.

~~~
Barrin92
>I should be able to opt-in if I want to.

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.

~~~
khedoros1
Well, either Facebook doesn't have training data for the opt-out users, or
they _do_ , and they use it to ensure that those users aren't publicly tagged
(my paranoia says that they're still tagged internally, regardless of the
option that's selected).

Either way, it would only need to identify those users who have actually opted
in.

------
gnicholas
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.

------
mwnz
Not sure that you can consider the activation silent, given that they prompted
people in their news feeds.

------
praneshp
Not really silent, right? Unless you meant there was no press coverage about
the feature.

~~~
markstos
They silently asked for your consent. As-in, they didn't. The feature is opt-
out, with their interests first, and your privacy and consent second.

~~~
khedoros1
The feature is "opt-out" in the sense that they based the default on some
other privacy setting. It was disabled by default, for me. But I've been
fairly diligent over the years, going through and disabling the things that I
didn't want.

------
bartl
I'm OK with this, under the condition that Facebook only uses it to alert you
of photos you likely appear in, i.e. those two first examples of what it can
do.

I would not allow them to show those results to other people.

------
pokoleo
I got this notification in my Facebook mobile app with slightly different
wording. I went into the settings, and it was turned off.

I wonder if they realized they need to show this to all users in order to get
some sort of consent.

------
nappy-doo
Google Photos has had it on for years -- not sure what the big deal here is?!?

~~~
ucaetano
Google Photos' was only within your account, and didn't assign any of the
faces to you unless you manually assigned it as "me". Later they included the
option (via opt-in) to have Google suggest that your friends share with you
photos that have you.

Facebook's is platform-wide, and you don't have the option of tagging faces
but not assigning them to you or to specific people.

------
supahfly_remix
Is there an easy way to mistrain this?

~~~
bfred_it
Definitely: tag yourself in photos that aren't you. Eventually Facebook will
think that's you.

------
debt
I'm fine with this, but how do I find those photos where I'm being
automatically tagged in?

------
polskibus
What possibilities for the user will GDPR bring into such situations, if any?

------
pkhamre
I hope they make a new function:

* Join the group of people that looks like me

------
pavel_lishin
Anyone have a handy link to where I can opt out of this?

~~~
moonka
Direct
link:[https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=facerec](https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=facerec)

------
pknerd
so how can one believe by turning it off will really make it disabled? After
all it's all about a CSS/JS animation ;)

------
endlessvoid94
How is this silent? They told you about it...

------
horsecaptin
Just wanted to point out. IF YOU ARE NOT THE CUSTOMER, THEN YOU ARE THE
PRODUCT!

~~~
jwilk
From the HN guidelines:

 _Please don 't use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word or
phrase, put asterisks around it and it will get italicized._

~~~
horsecaptin
I'd forgotten that one. Thank you.

