New Facebook users or those who had the tag suggestions setting will now have the face recognition setting and will receive information about how it works.
Facebook has always given users control over whether the social network uses face recognition technology to recognise them in photos.
This setting was previously called tag suggestions because Facebook only used face recognition technology to automatically suggest tags of users friends in photos.
Two years ago, Facebook introduced a new setting for some users called face recognition. The face recognition setting lets users manage whether Facebook uses face recognition technology on photos of them in order to suggest tags.
It provides an easy on or off switch for a broader set of uses of face recognition, such as helping users protect their identity on Facebook.
The tag suggestions setting, which only controls whether Facebook can suggest that a user’s friends tag them in photos or videos using face recognition will no longer be available.
People who still have the tag suggestions setting will begin to see a notice in their News Feed. The notice will include information about the new features and options to learn more about how the social network uses face recognition, along with a button to turn it on or keep it off.
Features like Photo Review will not be activated as long as users have permission to see the post based on its privacy setting.
People will still be able to manually tag friends, but Facebook won’t suggest that users be tagged if they do not have face recognition turned on. If users already have the face recognition setting, they won’t receive a notice.
Facebook’s face recognition technology will not recognise users to strangers. The social network said that don’t share your face recognition information with third parties and they don’t sell their technology.
These changes will be rolled out globally.