Germany Re-Opens Probe into Facebook Biometrics Use
German data privacy authorities have re-opened a probe into Facebook and its use of biometric facial recognition to determine whether the company is violating privacy protection laws in Europe, according to an article from BiometricUpdate.com.
In June 2011, Hamburg’s office for data protection and freedom of information suspended an investigation into Facebook’s use of facial recognition technology, to give the social media company to change its policies, the article says. Data protection commissioner Johannes Casper stated at the time that he believed that Facebook had been illegally collating face recognition data about its members without explicit permission, in order to populate the photo tag suggestion feature.