Germany’s Data Protection Agency is preparing a lawsuit against Facebook over its facial recognition feature. The system automatically scans user submitted photographs and tags the people in the photo based on their unique facial characteristics as long as they are friend with the person who posted the image, according to an IT Portal article.
The agency had been considering and threatening the lawsuit previously as it stated the facial recognition practice is an invasion of privacy. German newspaper Deutsche Welle, however, has reported that the agency has decided to move forward with the suit hoping to stop Facebook’s use of the technology.
Specifically, German officials allege that Facebook’s introduction of the facial recognition feature breaks European Union privacy laws as it involved constructing a database of users’ biometric data without obtaining consent or even informing the users.
Despite the claims from Germany’s Data Protection Agency, Facebook officials maintain that a suit would be unnecessary as they had provided information on the technology to their users.
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