The world’s media gave Facebook’s latest app release on Monday the fluffiest of coverage but missed one key thing: Moments, the new photo sharing app, won’t be coming to Europe any time soon.
The creepy facial recognition software in Moments, which automatically scans the faces in any picture against Facebook’s massive database of users (and non-users!) violates EU privacy standards.
Since 2012 Facebook has disabled the privacy invading facial recognition software on its system in Europe to ensure compliance with EU privacy laws that ban the practice.
After the splashy U.S. launch of Moments, Facebook declined to comment about any planned deployment of the app inside the EU.
In classic word games, for which Facebook is known for, it promised that its Moments app would sync photos on an Android or iOS device in “a private way” to allow close friends to quickly share pictures of each other.
While Facebook is no doubt eager to convince EU regulators to soften their stance against Facebook’s use of facial recognition technology, the EU isn’t exactly impressed by the company, as it faces numerous probes from both the EU and individual member countries over its business practices.
Stay Connected
