Facebook facial recognition policy draws attention from German privacy regulator

Facebook proposed changes to two of its most important legal documents, and new language on how the networking site deals with facial recognition technology has already raised some eyebrows — including those of a German privacy regulator, according to a report from PC World.

The social network had previously run into some resistance from European regulators who wanted it to be more explicit about how it uses such technology. Following recommendations from the Irish Data Protection Commission, the company then deleted all facial recognition data from European users from its servers. So German privacy regulators were surprised to see mention of facial recognition technology in the German version of the proposed policy. Facebook declined to comment on Hamburg privacy commissioner Johannes Caspar’s statement that he was “astonished” to see the technology mentioned in the policy proposal, but spokeswoman Jodi Seth confirmed that facial recognition features are not currently being implemented in Europe. Facebook chief privacy officer Erin Egan said that she believes tagging actually improves user privacy, because it offers an automatic way for users to police which images of their faces are posted to the Web site. “The benefit in being tagged is that you know photos exist,” Egan told the newspaper. Those interested can view a list of the changes Facebook is planning to make to its policies on its Web site. Users have seven days to provide suggestions and other input to the firm before the changes become official.