Privacy at Stake! Facebook Facial Recognition Features -- How far they can go?

Those who haven't heard of facebook, they probably been living under the rock this whole time. Facebook is, as most of the world population recognized it, the world's largest social network, with over 845 million monthly active users. Brought to us by its founder, Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004, initially as an exclusive network for Harvard students. Since then, it was a huge hit.

Facebook nowadays, is most commonly use as a way to connect with not just family and friends but with everyone from all over the world as well. It tears down boundaries everywhere. We can instantly communicate with people who have common interest with us around the world before we even know them, changing information and knowledge, sharing photos and videos, and all of this is available at our fingertips.

However, there are of course, serious privacy issues. One of them that we probably not knowing about, is its Facial Recognition Features. Facebook's facial-recognition software can sense who is in your photos and make tagging suggestions. Germany Investigation believes that Facebook has been illegally collecting face-recognition data about its members in order to populate its photo tag suggest feature. At this point, you are automatically opted into the feature, but you can opt-out.

I will admit that, at the moment, this issue concerns me just a little. It only works on people who you're already added as "friends", not just randomly identifying people in crowds, but will it keep on being like this in the future? I fear that one day, facebook users will quote, “Cool! Now I can take photos of cute girls anywhere, upload them on Facebook and it will tell me who they are!". I'm pretty sure that’s not how it works right now, but I’m sure it will get there.

Even now, some have raised issues about Facebook opening it up beyond just friends, or potentially exposing ID info in photos to others, and which possibly expose info that people originally thought was private.

My advice is, BE CAREFUL what you upload on Facebook, more importantly BE CAREFUL what you put on the INTERNET. Since there is no way to be 100% sure what Facebook or other users capable of doing to our uploaded photos eventhough our privacy settings is set according to our preferences. Most Facebook users probably don’t know that the 'extra' privacy setting is there. In short, the internet is an open sea, there will always be risks. Better safe than sorry.

Am I aware of this? YES. As I stated earlier, this issue does not concerns me that much, because I'm not the kind of Facebook user that upload thousands photos of me and my family members including embarassing photos that can destroy my reputation. What concerns me is that, I can't control OTHER people who can upload it.

Will I still stay on Facebook after knowing this? that's a YES too. Clearly I'm a Facebook user too, it is the best way to connect with my friends as well as making new ones, especially those who live in the distance. Facebook helps me to maintain my interaction with them, keeps me updated about their life-style, their activities, plans, getting to know their friends and families and that is just a taste of it.

Written By: Muhammad Muzzammil Bin Jamaludin - 1121115343