Live in the EU? Facebook is after your face data (again)

While the Cambridge Analytica scandal rumbles on, Facebook is quietly asking users in the EU and Canada to let it use its facial recognition to scan their faces and suggest tags in photos. It isn't the first time Mark Zuckerberg's firm has tried to get access to millions of Europeans' facial data. 

Facebook tried to bring facial recognition to people in the EU back in 2011, but it stopped doing so a year later after privacy campaigners raised concerns that the feature was not compatible with data protection laws. Now Facebook is hoping it can bring facial recognition back to the EU, as long as it secures explicit consent beforehand.

This is all part of Facebook’s plan to get ahead of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that’s due to come into force on May 25, 2018. As part of the push, Facebook is also explicitly asking for its users’ consent on using their data for targeted advertising, and sharing sensitive information such as political and religious views. Facebook will start asking its users in Europe for these permissions this week.

In a blog post published on April 17, Facebook’s chief privacy officer, Erin Egan, and deputy general counsel, Ashlie Beringer, explained the reasoning behind the company’s decision. “We not only want to comply with the law, but also go beyond our obligations to build new and improved privacy experiences for everyone on Facebook,” they wrote. Although European users are getting these requests a little earlier than the rest of the world – in order to meet the GDPR deadline – Facebook insisted that all of its users will be asked to make the same choices. 

But some have criticised Facebook for making it too easy for users to accept the new requests without really understanding how their data is being used – which sounds very similar to how much of Cambridge Analytica scandal started. 

On Facebook, users only have to click ‘accept and continue’ to opt-in to facial recognition, targeted adverts and facial recognition, and don’t have to scroll through the information before they accept the terms.