<quote>
ANALYSIS - If you haven't heard yet, Facebook hiked right into another privacy
wetland this week, as it started rolling out its facial recognition technology to users outside of North America.

The backlash, led by Graham Cluley blogging for the security firm Sophos, was fierce - and not altogether
focused. European privacy regulators immediately began an inquiry - a bad sign for all since there's little the
E.U. does worse than investigate privacy issues (opt-in for even first party cookies, for example - notwithstanding
that the E.U. actually has some decent smart rules about information privacy.)

At issue is a feature that Facebook turns on by default. When one of your friends uploads a photo and goes to "tag"
individuals in the photo, Facebook's facial recognition algorithm makes guesses about the faces in the photos and
suggests the right user for the picture. If someone who is not your Facebook friend uploads a picture say from a
conference, they will not get the suggestion that it is you (likely in no small part because facial recognition beyond
a certain group size is much harder to do.)
</quote>

More: <http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/06/anatomy-of-backlash/>

Have a Facebook account ?
Some lockdown guides >
<http://blog.eset.com/2011/05/25/facebook-privacy>
<http://chainmailcheck.wordpress.com/2011/01/05/facebook-security-guide/>
Either or as both gents are from ESET.

Silj


--
"Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker's game
because they almost always turn out to be -- or to be indistinguishable from
-- self-righteous sixteen-year-olds possessing infinite amounts of free time."
- Neil Stephenson, _Cryptonomicon_