Facebook Face Recognition, is designed by Facebook, to help you find photos that you’re in, but have not been tagged. With it, you also receive notifications on the photos you appear in.
With Facebook face recognition, Facebook has the power to recognize hundreds of millions of people in photos.
Facebook Face Recognition Advantages
- You are protected from strangers using your photo
- Locate photos that your face appears in, but you have not been tagged
- You can tell people with visual impairments who are in your photo or video
- By turning on the Facebook face recognition settings, you can control face recognition.
How Facebook Face Recognition Works
Facebook face recognition works in the following ways;
- Once you turn on your “Tag suggestions” or “Face recognition”, you get notified by the social network’s machine learning systems, on any photo you are tagged in. The social network’s machine learning systems analyze the pixels of the face in the image, and creates what’s known as “Template”. This template is a string of numbers, thus each user is assigned a unique template.
- Once new photos are uploaded, Facebook compares the faces that are represented in the image to templates of relevant users, and makes a suggestion of a tag, if there’s a match.
- Note, these templates are voluntary, and can only be enabled, if you have tag suggestions or face recognition enabled.
- In case you decide to turn off tag suggestions, or the new face recognition features, the templates, will be automatically deleted, and can only be re-enabled when you want it.
How to Turn On Facebook Face Recognition
Here’s how to turn on the Facebook face recognition feature;
- Select “Settings” from the triangle-shaped drop-down menu at the top right of your Facebook page
- Once you spot the “Face Recognition” feature, tap on it, and agree to the use of service.
- If you already have the “Tag suggestions” enabled, the new face recognition features will initially be enabled as soon as they are rolling out to you.
How to Opt-Out of Facebook Face Recognition
If all these sounds weird to you, and you don’t want Facebook keeping tabs on your every move, you can opt out of the Facebook face recognition. Here’s how;
- Turn off your tag suggestions status, by tapping on “Timeline and Tagging” on Facebook’s settings page.
- Search for, “Who sees tag suggestions when photos that look like you are uploaded?”. If this is set to “Friends”, it is enabled. If it is set to “No one”, then it is off.
If you have your tag suggestions turned off, the new facial recognition features will be turned off by default, when it’s made available to you.
If you also have tag suggestions or face recognition enabled, you can opt out of them any time you want. Once you do this, the templates will be deleted.
Facebook face recognition, makes it easier for you to manage what images of your are published and helps you keep a security check, as well as keep fraudsters who like to impersonate at bay.