Meta (c’mon, who is going to stop calling it Facebook? How about ‘MetaBook’ or ‘FaceMeta’?) says that they will stop using facial recognition, and will remove more than 1billion individual’s face recognition templates. This coming as, we are sure, heightened scrutiny when it comes to privacy in general, and facial recognition in particular, leads to Facebook Meta seeing the handwriting on the wall, and that handwriting says “there be potential lawsuits”.

Apple’s upcoming new smartphone, the iPhone X (iPhone 10), is due out next month (November). Even if the $1000 price tag doesn’t put you off, there are certain things that you should know about the iPhone X which may, such as iPhone 10’s Face ID facial recognition. And The Notch (which some people call the Tab). And the glass back.

A new Russian facial recognition app called FindFace is raising privacy concerns around the world. Unlike other recent facial recognition systems, Find Face works somewhat in reverse: rather than recognizing images of someone already known to you, it allows you to take a picture of a stranger, and then it will identify who the person is for you. Source say that so far it works about 70% of the time, based on it’s usage with Vkontakte (also known as VK), which, with 200million users, is said to be the European equivalent of Facebook, and third in size only behind Facebook and Twitter.

It’s no secret that facial recognition software is here – and on the Internet – to stay. More than two years ago we told Internet Patrol readers how Facebook is using face matching software on the photos you upload, and more recently we told of how the police are using facial recognition software on pictures they find in social media to find criminals and persons of interest. But even we were surprised at this novel use of facial recognition software: finding a mate based on facial similarities to yourself.

Facebook is certainly no stranger to defending its practices, especially when those practices threaten the privacy of their users. Now they are finding themselves, yet again, in a position to have to do so. Facebook employees had to defend the social media giant’s facial recognition technology, which is used to help users tag people in their online Facebook photos. While Facebook maintains that its purpose is to provide a better consumer experience, some feel that it raises privacy issues.

Earlier this year we mentioned that Google was rolling out face recognition technology that would allow someone to pull up your personal information just by taking your picture. Now Facebook has launched their own facial recognition privacy nightmare, which “uses a comparison of photos you’re tagged in to suggest that friends tag you in new photos.” In other words, when one of your Facebook friends uploads a photo, and Facebook’s software recognizes you in that image, Facebook automatically suggests that your friend tag you in the photograph. The “feature” goes by “Suggest photos of me to friends”, and is also known as “Photos: Suggest Tags”. And the kicker is, Facebook has quietly enabled this for you – it is running now! So here’s how to turn it off!