Social Networks: How to Block Facebook's Face Recognition & Tighten Other Privacy Settings

#Social Networks: How to Block Facebook’s Face Recognition & Tighten Other Privacy Settings

June 8th, 2011

Image by karen horton via Flickr

Facebook continues to push the edge of the envelope when it comes to making inroads into what users can consider “private” or not. The latest foray into this porous arena is face recognition technology.

I quote heavily from a Fast Company magazine article:

“By adjusting its interface, Facebook has now enabled “tag suggestions” to many more of its users around the world, which means your friends will get an alert if someone uploads a photo that Facebook thinks contains your image. They’ll be invited to tag it, and then your ID’s associated with that image. … [the] system is actually turned on by default–which is Facebook’s privacy boundary creep in action.

Here’s how to turn it off, with a reminder of how to enable other privacy measures.”

On a somewhat related note, The Guardian newspaper continues its exposure of Rupert Murdock’s News Corporation illegal eaves-dropping and reselling of personal information gleaned from a variety of politicians, celebrities, and law enforcement figures in the UK (See: Phone-hacking scandal widens to include Kate Middleton and Tony Blair).

Personal privacy, whether online or off, continues to erode as we firmly embed ourselves in the “Cloud.”