Google has started rolling out a facial recognition feature to its Google social networking site. The new feature called “Find My Face” is similar to a tagging feature Facebook launched few months ago. However, unlike Facebook, Google has made the feature an opt-in.
The new ‘Find My Face’ feature prompts users to tag their their friends whenever their photos appear in the photos. Google has also given the users an option to accept or reject the tags suggestion. Facebook’s photo tag feature is very similar to the Find My Face as it automatically detects the images of your friends in the photos and suggests for the tagging. However, the Facebook feature is opt-out, which means users are required to deactivate the option as it gets enabled by default. On the other hand, the Google photo tag feature asks you to enable the option, so onus rests in the hand of the users.
Announcing the new feature, Matt Steiner, Engineering Lead on the Google Photos team said:
“Around the holidays, many of us get together with friends and family, and if you’re like me, you take lots of photos! Tagging those photos can be a lot of work. So today we’re launching Find My Face, an easier way to tag photos of yourself and your friends.
By turning on Find My Face, Google can prompt people you know to tag your face when it appears in photos. Of course, you have control over which tags you accept or reject, and you can turn the feature on or off in Google settings.”
According to Matt Steiner, the new Find My Face will be rolling out over the next few days.
It may be recalled that Facebook had drawn a lot of flak from the critics for its facial recognition feature. The social networking site recently admitted making “a bunch of mistakes” on the privacy front and vowed to overhaul its policy. The U.S.-based Federal Trade Commissio had directed Facebook to obtain consumers’ affirmative express consent before enacting changes that override their privacy preferences.
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