If the idea of Facebook’s latest innovation, Face Recognition, freaks you out, then you’re not alone. Sure, we suppose that there’s something sort of cool (and yet totally creepy) about the fact that Facebook will alert your friends if they have a photo that it thinks contains your image. Our fear of unflattering pics no longer flying under the radar aside, the biggest problem we have with it, like many of the new things that Facebook introduces, is that the service is automatically turned on for users by default — which is just plain sneaky and annoying. In case you’re the kind of person who values your online privacy, here’s how to fix that in under a minute.
1. Click on “Privacy settings,” which you’ll find in the “Account” drop-down menu in the top right corner of the screen. 2. Under “Sharing on Facebook” click on the “Custom” option. 3. Click on “customize settings label” — it’s the link with the little blue pencil. 4. About half way down the page you’ll find “Suggest photos of me to friends” in the “Things others share” section. Click on the “Edit Settings” button, and change your preference to “Disabled.” 5. Click “OK” to save your changes.
Presto! Now your friends will have to go back to manually tagging your mug. And, while we’re on the topic, Fast Company has a few other privacy-related suggestions that are probably worth checking out. We’re also curious: What do you think of Face Recognition? Are we being overly wary of embracing this new technology? Let us know in the comments.