Face.com

By christine on November 23rd, 2009, 2:00 pm 3 Comments

 The Internet has blurred the boundaries between public and private lives, and stories of “the employee who got into trouble at work when photos with embarrassing content emerged online” are common. For those whose weekend photos on Facebook are hurting their reputation at work, an Israeli company thinks it can help.

Face.com, based in Tel Aviv and New York, has developed a facial recognitiontechnology that detects when people add pictures of you on Facebook so you can take them down before they cause any damage.”In social networks, you lose control of your image,” said Gill Hirsch, chief executive of Face.com. “Anyone can upload photos of you without your consent, and this can be uneasy for some people.” The original aim of the service was to make it easier for Facebook users to “tag” photos, or identify who is in a picture. But during the last three months of testing, users asked to be alerted when pictures of themselves are added without their knowledge. While Facebook informs users when other members tag photos with their names, some photos can remain untagged. With this new Facebook App called Photo Finder,  it scans all of the user’s friends’ photo albums. If it finds a match, the user is alerted. It’s also useful to help people find lost photos. 

Some employers have admitted to checking social network profiles of job candidates for embarrassing content, which  has led to a small backlash by Facebook users who say employers need to accept this new reality. One Facebook group is even called  ”Dear Employer: I’m An Upstanding Individual Despite My Facebook Pictures.”

Any thoughts on this issue and how it should be treated? Will this app be beneficial, or should people not post incriminating photos in the first place?

Category: blog | Tags: app face recognition Facebook photo privacy social networks | Permalink: Face.com