Facebook said it will start asking European and Canadian users to let it use facial recognition technology in its latest move to become more transparent regarding users' privacy.
A blog post posted late yesterday by Erin Egan, VP and chief privacy officer, policy, and Ashlie Beringer, VP and deputy general counsel, said:
Weve offered products using face recognition in most of the world for more than six years.
As part of this update, were now giving people in the EU and Canada the choice to turn on face recognition. Using face recognition is entirely optional for anyone on Facebook.
Read more: The Bootleggers and Baptists are fighting to regulate Facebook
So this week it will start the process, asking users to let it identify them in photos and videos. The tech giant said the new request is one of several opt-in permissions being rolled out ahead of a new data privacy law – the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Facebook said that everyone – "no matter where they live" – will be asked to review important information about how Facebook uses data and make choices about their privacy on the social media platform.
The blog post added: "As soon as GDPR was finalised, we realised it was an opportunity to invest even more heavily in privacy. We not only want to comply with the law, but also go beyond our obligations to build new and improved privacy experiences for everyone on Facebook."
The social media giant will ask everyone on Facebook to make choices about ads based on data from partners, and information in their profile such as whether to share political, religious and relationship information.
The firm has been making headlines recently for its part in a privacy scandal relating to the use of its users' personal information by the political consultancy Cambridge Analytica. In recent weeks, Facebook has begun notifying users whose information may have been harvested.
Read more: Forget Facebook – its tech-illiterate politicians we should worry about
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