By Thomas Claburn June 08, 2011

Without fanfare, Facebook has decided help people recognize and tag their friends in photos added to the social website through the use of facial recognition technology. It has done so by enabling facial recognition by default; users who wish not to be identified automatically when friends tag pictures must seek out the appropriate privacy setting to opt-out of Tag Suggestions. Facial recognition technology remains highly controversial, so much so that Google has held off deploying it in its Google Goggles visual search application for fear of potential privacy complaints. Facebook's decision to enable facial recognition for its users without asking permission is prompting just such a backlash. Computer security company Sophos wrote an open letter to Facebook in April asking it to enable privacy by default instead of forcing users to opt-out. "Unfortunately, once again, Facebook seems to be sharing personal information by default," wrote Graham Cluely, senior technology consultant at Sophos, in a blog post. "Many people feel distinctly uncomfortable about a site like Facebook learning what they look like, and using that information without their permission." "What we're seeing here is another chapter in Facebook's normal playbook on this, which is to be very aggressive," said privacy advocate Lauren Weinstein, co-founder of People For Internet Responsibility, an Internet policy group. Such behavior, he said, was "in keeping with CEO Mark Zuckerberg's sensibilities about these sorts of things." 

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