annualized favor: Facebook suspends photo-tagging function in Europe

Monday, September 24, 2012

Facebook suspends photo-tagging function in Europe

By Robert Daniel, MarketWatch

TEL AVIV (MarketWatch) -- Facebook Inc. suspended for European users its automatic-photo-tagging feature in an effort to satisfy regulators who were concerned that the function, based on recognizing people?s faces, would harm privacy rights.

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For Facebook, reports say, the suspension could impair its ability to profit from the data it collects about its user base, which estimates say is approaching 1 billion.

More broadly, The New York Times reported, the decision could affect how facial-recognition technology is used in public, for security and for marketing.

The Menlo Park, Calif., social-networking firm /quotes/zigman/9962609/quotes/nls/fb FB +1.20% ?agreed that by Oct. 15 it would delete for existing European users the data it has collected from its facial-recognition function, Ireland?s commissioner for data protection, Billy Hawkes, said in a Friday statement. The feature is already unavailable to new users.

?By doing so, [Facebook] is sending a clear signal of its wish to demonstrate its commitment to best practice in data-protection compliance,? Hawkes said in a statement.

Facebook?s non-U.S. operations are headquartered in Dublin.

/quotes/zigman/9962609/quotes/nls/fb FB 22.86, +0.27, +1.20%

Bloomberg Businessweek reported that other data-protection regulators within the European Union have been reviewing the feature as well.

A statement from a Facebook official, quoted in media reports, said the company intended to bring back the tagging function once it fully complied with EU rules. The function enables Facebook users to automatically see the names of people in photos they upload and tag, or identify, them.

The New York Times also reported that Facebook has been criticized by U.S. consumer-protection advocates over its face-recognition technology. It quoted Sen. Al Franken (D., Minn.) as calling on the company to enable its U.S. users to choose to participate in its photographic database.

In mid-June, Facebook acquired Face.com, a Tel Aviv specialist in facial-recognition technology for photos. The Israeli business daily Globes reported via sources that the deal price was around $100 million.

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