Privacy Groups File Complaint over Facebook Facial Recognition

Five Facts Facebook Should Know About Privacy

If the company would remember these five things about privacy, its execs might not shudder at the mere mention of the word.

Computerworld reports that the Electronic Privacy Information Center and three other advocacy groups are asking the Federal Trade Commission to look into Facebook's new facial recognition service. The complaint, which calls the software "unfair and deceptive," according to PCMag.com, asks the FTC to force Facebook to stop collecting users' biometric data without their permission. The complaint contends:

There is every reason to believe that unless the commission acts promptly, Facebook will routinely automate facial identification and eliminate any pretense of user control over the use of their own images for online identification.

As IT Business Edge blogger Lora Bentley reported last week, the European Union is already questioning the service. ITProPortal notes that privacy regulators in the UK and Ireland also have plans to launch their own investigations into the matter.