Facebook has enabled a feature whereby users in Europea and Canadian can let it use facial recognition technology to identify them in photos and videos.The new request is one of several opt-in permissions being rolled out in advance of a new data privacy law, GDPR in Europe, and amid other privacy wrangles.Facebook originally began face-matching users outside Canada in 2011, but stopped doing so for EU citizens the following year after protests from regulators and privacy campaigners.The facial recognition facility works by assigning each user a unique number called a template. This is calculated by analysing the way they look in their profile photograph and other images they have already been identified in.Untagged faces are then represented in a similar manner and compared to the database of templates.When a match is found, Facebook prompts both the person posting an image and the people appearing in it to apply the relevant name tags. In addition, it uses the tech to detect when a scammer is attempting to use a stolen photo as their profile picture.
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