What can you do about Facebook's Facial Recognition?

Did you know that Facebook uses facial recognition software to tag every photo uploaded?  One aspect of this that you may not think of is that if a friend uploads a picture with you in it, Facebook, by default will tag you in the photo and make it public to anyone who sees it.  This stinks if you want privacy on the site, even if you update your privacy settings for your profile.  So what can you do about it?

Sadly, you can't.

But what you can do is prevent Facebook from using its facial recognition database to suggest to your Facebook friends, when they upload photos of you to the site, that the pictures should be tagged with your name.

This doesn't mean that Facebook won't learn about what you look like and associate it with your likes and friendships - but it does mean you can opt out of Facebook using the data it has collected on your appearance.

If you don't like the idea of Facebook suggesting your name when your friends upload photos, here's how you disable the option.

• Go to your Facebook account's privacy settings.
• Go to "Timeline and tagging" and click on "Edit settings".

• Choose "Who sees tag suggestions when photos that look like you are uploaded?".

• Select "No one" if you don't want Facebook to tell your friends when it has recognised your face in a photo they have uploaded.

• Press "OK".

Unfortunately, Facebook doesn't believe in "privacy by default" - which would mean that users' express permission would be required ("opt-in") before information about them could be shared. (By comparison, Google+ does ask you to opt-in to facial recognition).

If Facebook's facial database is such a great concept - why doesn't the company present its arguments to users as to why they should want to participate in it, and invite them to "opt-in" to being included in the huge collection of faces?