Facebook will be questioned by EU data protection regulators over a feature that uses a facial-recognition programme to automatically suggest people's names to tag in pictures.
Facebook, owner of the world's most popular social networking service, said in a post on its blog yesterday that 'tag suggestions' are available in most countries now after a rollout that's been going on over several months.
The feature uses facial-recognition software, and when a user posts a new photo to their Facebook page, the feature suggests people's names to be tagged based on pictures they have been tagged in before.
The feature is active by default on existing users' accounts and Facebook explains on its blog post how people can disable the function if they don't want their names to be suggested automatically in other people's pictures.
"Tags of people on pictures should only happen based on people's prior consent and it can't be activated by default," said Gerard Lommel, a Luxembourg member of the so-called Article 29 Data Protection Working Party.
Such automatic tagging "can bear a lot of risks for users" and the group will "clarify to Facebook that this can't happen like this".
Facebook representatives didn't respond to emails seeking comment.
The company is among US companies that have been under scrutiny in the EU for possible privacy breaches relating to people's data.
Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have been pushed by European data-protection officials to limit the amount of time they store online users' search records.
The group has also criticised Facebook for policy changes that could breach users' entitlement to privacy.
Bloomberg