Technology will store a ‘template’ of your face and enable Facebook to work out if somebody is trying to impersonate you online

The social network has revealed how it is using facial recognition to uncover more images of you, even ones you don’t know about.

The technology will also enable Facebook to work out if somebody is trying to impersonate you online.

From 20th December, Facebook will notify you when it thinks it has spotted you in a picture or video that nobody has tagged you in.

To recognise whether or not you’re in a photo or video, the site says its facial recognition system will compare images with your profile pictures and other photos and videos you’re tagged in.

“Our technology analyzes the pixels in photos you’re already tagged in and generates a string of numbers we call a template. When photos and videos are uploaded to our systems, we compare those images to the template,” the company says.

“We always respect the privacy setting people select when posting a photo on Facebook (whether that’s friends, public or a custom audience), so you won’t receive a notification if you’re not in the audience,” the company says.

That means you won’t receive a tag suggestion notification if Facebook finds your face in a picture or video that’s private to the person who uploaded it.

The technology is also going to be used to detect when other people use photos of you as their own profile picture. Read more