Facebook’s latest facial recognition feature will not be launched in Europe in immediate future

Facebook recently rolled out a new service called “Moments” that expands the use of its “faceprint” technology, however, the feature will not be launched in Europe any time soon, according to a report by Fortune.

Launched earlier this month, Facebook Moments accesses a user’s camera roll on their smartphone and scans the library for photos of their friends using Facebook’s facial recognition software, Deepface.

Users can then send the photos to their friends who are identified in them.

Though the feature makes it significantly easier to share a large group of photos, it also provides Facebook with more private data regarding its users in the process.

The artificial intelligence technology drives Facebook’s existing “tag” feature, instructing computers to learn and eventually recognize faces to identify people in photos for tagging purposes.

However, the tag feature is disabled in many countries, as regulators in the European Union and Canada have found it to be too intrusive.

As a result, Facebook Moments will not be launched in Europe any time in the immediate future as to avoid opposition from regulators, according to a report by The Register.

Facebook has since declined to comment when asked about whether the company is planning to deploy its Moments app in the EU.

The social network has no immediate strategy to roll out the app within the 28-member state bloc, according to The Register report.

Previously reported, a class action suit against Facebook alleged that the social media giant violated its users’ privacy rights to acquire the largest privately held database of facial recognition data in the world.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  Canada  |  Europe  |  Facebook  |  privacy