Facebook will protect users’ faces

Social network Facebook is implementing a system to notify users when photos of them are being uploaded. It's an upgrade of already existing system of facial recognition and tagging. When new photos are uploaded Facebook algorithms recognize human faces, create digital templates and compare them to the ones already saved. In case of a match, user has a possibility to tag their friends on the photo and they receive a corresponding notification.

The new function will send notifications to all users recognized on the photo no matter if they are friends with the person who uploaded it or not or whether they have been tagged. The company believes that this will allows to lower the risk of uploading pictures that users consider to be offensive or inappropriate and also to prevent creation of fake accounts. “These new features help you find photos that you’re not tagged in and help you detect when others might be attempting to use your image as their profile picture”, explains the Director of Applied Machine Learning on Facebook Joaquin Quiñonero Candela.

This function will not be active in Canada and EU because it violates user privacy laws of these countries.