Facebook To Ask For Facial Recognition Consent for E.U. and Canada

[engine]

Facebook wants to use facial recognition in the EU and Canada to recognise its users in photographs and videos on the site, and will ask for permission to opt-in.

I can't see this going down too well, imho.

The new request is one of several opt-in permissions being rolled out in advance of a new data privacy law.

[bbc.co.uk...]

[tangor]

GDPR forced this. Would have been smart if they'd done it that way in the US, could have avoided a class action law suit over facial recognition.

[Travis]

Facebook, Google, Microsoft, etc... are supposed to have the brightest and smartest men and women in the World and a battalion of dedicated lawyers. So I wonder if, what we believe are "mistakes" or "fails" from their part, are really so, or if in fact, their benefits are higher than the risks. Facebook certainly takes in consideration all possible class actions, each time they release something, and measure how much they might have to pay, but also how much it will earn them. If the balance is positive, then let's take the risk. For the GDPR, this is more rough, the fine can be up to 4% of their annual world wide earnings (or 20 millions euros, but in case of Internet giants, this is the 4% which will be taken). If I don't make mistake, Facebook has something like $40 billions of world wide earnings, so EACH GDPR fine can be $1.6 billion. This might be more risky than class actions in the USA (even if, in the past, some US class actions were hundred or tens of billions)

[engine]

Forget regulation for the moment, this is about personal exposure.

[Travis]

Forget regulation for the moment, this is about personal exposure.

Without legal regulations, Internet giants do not mind about privacy or personal exposure. This is because they do not regulate themselves, and did not adopt good behaviors, that politicians had to set up rules, and this is because there are rules, that Internet giants are now forced to change their methods. If there was not the risk of huge fine, they wouldn't bother, or they would continue to use all their smartness to bypass laws.

[Travis]

"Facebook starts its facial recognition push to Europeans"
[techcrunch.com...]