Today is the anniversary of my disconnecting from Facebook. I’ll be writing a few posts about why I disconnected and why I may disconnect.
One of the many reasons I finally closed my account was the announcement that Facebook had mapped every face from every tagged photo ever uploaded to Facebook to be able to identify people with their personal information from any photo. Users were free to ask Facebook to stop offering the suggestions to other users, but Facebook offered no way to request they don’t map you and your children’s faces.
As a software developer who has created Facebook apps, I thought at the time: It won’t be that hard to set up a video camera and take snapshots of any crowd and then associate with people’s personal information.
Here’s three possible uses for this technology I don’t appreciate.
Use 1:
This article describes one application I thought of at the time: the marketing realization of a sci-fi dream of instant personalized marketing to consumers who walk by. Get their photo, their Facebook friends and interests and present an ad that blasts, “Looks like the discomfort you’ve commented about on your wife’s profile page may be due to hemorrhoids. Your friend Jim bought our hemorrhoid product last year and it’s now on sale!”
I don’t think you or Jim would appreciate the message blaring.
Use 2:
The Obama campaign recently developed an app to show you which of your neighbors are registered Democrats and which ones aren’t. Connect facial recognition and your app could display a message, “Sally, straight ahead, is a registered Democrat who lives at 135 Oak Street in San Diego. She likes cats and pie. Suggest she vote for Obama, who also likes cats and pie.”
Use 3:
The “who isn’t home app.” Take a photo of a busy Black Friday mass shopping crowd this Thanksgiving weekend. Upload it to an app, and find out the contact information for all Facebook users in the crowd. Press a button to call your friends and let them know whose home can be safely robbed because they aren’t home.
