Earlier this week Facebook drew significant backlash over a feature that uses facial recognition to help users tag their friends in photos shared on the site. The feature isn’t new, but Facebook recently activated it by default for many users, drawing a wave of criticism including a probe from European Union privacy regulators (though Facebook laterclarified that there isn’t a formal investigation under way). I’ve already shared my take on the issue: the EU complaints seem to have little to do with facial recognition and a lot to do with longstanding Facebook policies — and the feature in question is benign.
But plenty of people don’t share my stance, and now it looks like Facebook may be up against a challenge in the United States as well. We’ve obtained a draft copy of a complaint to the FTC penned by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), and we hear that they’re trying to drum up support from other privacy organizations before they file the document. We’ve contacted EPIC to clarify their intentions and will update if we hear back from them. But for now, we can still examine the complaint.
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