Privacy groups urge investigation of Facebook facial recognition tool

Facebook already knows about your friend, random thoughts and likes. Now it wants to collect biometric data? That’s the subject of a complaint by privacy advocates filed at the Federal Trade Commission, asking the agency to stop Facebook’s facial recognition service.

Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) also urged the FTC to investigate the service for privacy and consumer violations. In its complaint, the Electronic Privacy Information Center said Facebook — with an estimated 60 billion photos of individuals in its collection — secretly collected facial images for automated online identification. Through its facial recognition software, Facebook recommended tags to help identify people in photos. It began rolling out the service last December, and the company said it should have done a better job of alerting consumers that it was being implemented more widely. That, according to EPIC’s Marc Rotenberg, violates consumer protection laws. The feature was implemented without user consent. And even though users can opt out of the service, Facebook subscribers weren't notified of the risks associated with the service, he said.