06:04
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The deployment of "Tag Suggestions" technology -- designed to speed up the process of labelling friends in photos -- had renewed concerns about how the world's largest social network with 750 million members handles privacy.
The technology scans newly uploaded photos, compares faces in those snapshots with previous pictures, then tries to match faces and suggest name tags. When a match is found, Facebook alerts the person uploading the photos and invites them to "tag," or identify, the person in the photo.
Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen said in a letter to Facebook last month that it compromised consumers' rights to privacy by analyzing faces in photographs posted on the website, then cataloguing them.
Facebook has since met with Jepsen, and this month began running ads on users' home pages telling them about the feature and allowing them to count themselves out of its use entirely. Should users opt out, any facial recognition data that had been collected will be deleted.
" Facebook has made significant changes that will provide better service and greater privacy protection to its users, not only in Connecticut, but across the country," Jepsen said in a statement on Tuesday. "The company has been cooperative and diligent in its response."
Read more:Yahoo
