What Happens When Facebook Face Scan Screws Up?

June 8th, 2011. By AbiK

Can you spell L-A-W-S-U-I-T?

As the adage goes, give them an inch, they’ll take a mile. And Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook are giving credence to the phrase with this whole face scanning bit. Internet privacy be damned is apparently the underlying mantra of all that Facebook is becoming.

The latest “isn’t technology great?!” app that Facebook will be deploying focuses on all those wonderful Kodak moments that you load onto your Facebook page. Facebook will launch the software that will scan the faces in all uploaded images—yes, yours too—on the site in a few weeks, according to CNN.com.

The face scanning app will “recognize” you (I love the innocuous feel to that—like I’ve just run into Facebook in the produce aisle at Winn-Dixie and they’ve “recognized” me with a “Hi! Great to see you again!”. Bullsh#t.) and your friends on any given picture. The face scanning program will then suggest the name of the person in the picture. Aww shucks, Facebook’s helping us all tag our friends in photos so we only have to check a box! Bullsh#t.

What’s wrong with having Facebook face scans? I’ll tell you:

1. Facebook Face Scan and Privacy are Like Oil and Water.

See, here’s the thing: all Facebook users have automatically been included in the database for the face scanning. Oh, sure, you can “opt out” but you shouldn’t have to opt out—you should have to opt IN. By going ahead and taking your image, face scanning you and letting you opt out, Facebook already has you in the database, they just won’t “suggest” your name in any photos if you opt out.

Did you agree to be in that database for that purpose? No. When you signed on to have a wall on Facebook, I’m betting that wasn’t part of what you agreed to. And this is yet one more time that users are being told to opt out of some new functionality on FB that they don’t want to be a part of. Remember the need to opt out of Instant Personalization? When folks have gone as far as to create a damn Wiki page to provide instruction on how to opt out of a Facebook app, things have gone too far. But Facebook missed that memo. On the other hand, Google recently chose to NOT release face scan technology it had developed—for privacy reasons. Kudos to Google.

Note to Facebook: when you want to flaunt new technology, capabilities, toys and tools—ask your constituents first whether they want to be a part of it at all before making them opt out of it.

2. What if Facebook Face Scan Identifies the Wrong Person?

I’m guessing that Facebook Face Scan will follow the 80/20 rule when it comes to accurately assigning an identity to a face scan. A number of reports currently on the web put in question its ability to be completely accurate. And it leaves you with this WWFD?—What Will Facebook Do?—with your face scan question. Will they get it right?

I think back to the poor girl whose picture was incorrectly blasted all over the internet in the famed Kobe Bryant case—remember the one in Colorado where Bryant had a little rendezvous? To quote that girl’s lawyer, Sienna LaRene, who at the time was interviewed by Anderson Cooper on CNN, “I think down the road when the dust settles, there is absolutely no question that libel—a libelous situation exists, based on the reckless dissemination of these photographs without any attempt to check if this, in fact, was the complainant in the case. Albeit that would have been bad enough….Reckless? Absolutely. Potential libel suit, absolutely.”

It’s like a bad “separated at birth” dream. And it’s bound to happen. With private investigators out there like Steven Rambam who references sites like Facebook with a “Thank you very much!” for supplying him with an all-access pass to an incredible amount of personal information—it’s easy to see how serious a misidentification can be. Mind you, Rambam would do his homework first and make sure he’s got his man.

But if you think that your “friends” are mini-Rambam’s who will only check off that image tag box if they have the right person, consider the high school kid with 700 images loaded from various parties. Hmm, is that Karen in that pic? Yeah—I think so… I don’t need to tell you what situations might arise for “Karen’s” image to be broadcast around the web.

And the general public is not as discerning with these things as you think. Case in point: I’ve had—seriously—several people ask me if I’m Nicole Brown Simpson. No kidding. To which I respond, “She’s dead.” Doesn’t matter. That actually reminds me of PCWorld’s headline about Facebook Face Scanning being “Creepy”. It is. (And I love their comical suggestion to start uploading “random pictures of trees and animals and stuffed toys and tag them as yourself.” Very funny @geeklil)

So welcome Facebook face scan, and welcome privacy lawsuits—they’re bound to happen. And potentially libel lawsuits, too. That’s my prediction. In the interim, get your mouse and click over to Facebook for..

How to Opt Out of Facebook Face Scan Sharing

1. Go to Account > Account Settings > Privacy

2. Click on the little link “Customize Settings”

3. Go to “Things Others Share” section

4. Go to “Suggest Photos of Me to Friends” and edit the settings to “Disable”

Do it—now!

Tags: Face Recognition, Face Scanning, Facebook, Facebook Friends, Internet Privacy, Libel Lawsuit, Photo Tagging, Privacy Lawsuit

This was posted on Wednesday, June 8th, 2011 at 10:25 am and is filed under Emerging Issues, Internet/E-commerce . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.