Facebook has agreed to disable its facial recognition service for European users, Ireland's Data Protection Commissioner announced today. Facebook has come under fire in the EU for using facial recognition software to identify the people in users' photos and suggest friends to tag in those photos. Germany recently called the practice illegal and demanded that Facebook disable the facial recognition service and destroy its database of files based on facial recognition technology.
Facebook said at the time that it didn't have to, because the data collection is legal in Ireland, where the company has its European headquarters. But Irish authorities were conducting an inquiry of their own, and forced Facebook to partially adopt what Germany demanded.
Regarding the "tag suggest/facial recognition feature," Facebook has agreed "to go beyond our initial recommendations, in light of developments since then, in order to achieve best practice," Irish Data Protection Commissioner Billy Hawkes said in an announcement. "This feature has already been turned off for new users in the EU and templates for existing users will be deleted by 15 October, pending agreement with my Office on the most appropriate means of collecting user consent."
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