Facebook to expand facial recognition technology

Social networking site- Facebook has expanded the availability of technology to automatically identify people in photos, said a report.

In its official blog, Facebook stated that it has automatically enabled the feature for its users and it has been expanded the feature from the United States to most countries

A feature called Tag Suggestions enables speeding up of the process of labeling people who appear in photos posted on the site.

The move has obviously attracted concerns about the privacy practices of the site.

Internet security consultant firm Sophos in its company blog said that many Facebook users complained that the site has enabled the facial recognition option in the last few days without giving users any prior notice, the report stated.

Facebook announced the wide availability of the feature on Tuesday. The site, however, accepted that it should have been clearer with users during the roll-out process when this feature was made available.

Facebook said that photo-tagging suggestions are only made when new photos are added to the site only when friends suggested. It also added that the users have the option of disabling the feature in their privacy settings.

Facebook faced an issue about its privacy practices when Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a complaint earlier last year. The case is still pending.