Facebook unveils new facial recognition and feature to notify users when their photo is posted

Facebook is introducing new facial recognition features that will automatically notify users when their photo is posted on the social network, the company said in a blog post on Tuesday.

The new features are being rolled out in the face of growing pressure on the company from regulators in Europe, the US and elsewhere who have criticised Facebook for spreading fake news, fostering hate speech, eroding civil discourse and trampling privacy rights. The facial recognition technology could help combat some abusive conduct on the network, the company said, although it may also raise additional privacy concerns.

The feature builds on technology Facebook already uses to suggest tags or labels for people in photos users post, Rob Sherman, the company’s deputy chief privacy officer, said in an interview.

He said the new feature give users more control by telling them when their photo has been posted. They can review the post and then tag themselves, choose to leave themselves untagged or, if they are not comfortable with it, contact with the user who posted the photo to ask them to remove it, or file a complaint with Facebook, he said.

A user must be part of the permitted audience for the page posting the photo to receive the notification.

An additional feature will also tell users if anyone across the entire social network tries to post a profile picture containing them, Joaquin Candela, Facebook’s director of applied machine learning, said in the blog. “We’re doing this to prevent people from impersonating others on Facebook,” he said.