Facebook's Facial Recognition Outlawed in Germany

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I have a feeling Facebook is going to unfriend Germany over this one. :D

The latest development has to with Facebook's facial recognition feature that helps users tag photos. After joining in the chorus of European nations that objected to the feature launch in June, German authorities are now the first to declare the feature illegal.
 
German privacy laws are pretty draconian and it's pretty cool that they implemented this. Not even a hiccup on our side of the pond about this...
 
I wonder how it is enforced.

If Facebook doesn't have physical servers in Germany (not sure if they do) does this apply? If German citizens choose to access a server located in a foreign country, which countries laws apply? The country where the server is located, or the country where the client is located.

If it is client based, it would seem near impossible for companies to conform, as each individual country, state/region or town could have different laws...

Is there precedence for what happens in cases like these?
 
German privacy laws are pretty draconian and it's pretty cool that they implemented this. Not even a hiccup on our side of the pond about this...
Thats because The German people that are still alive from yesteryear remember what happened many years ago when their rights were slowly taken away from them under the guise of security. Some countries haven't experienced it and possibly will follow in similar footsteps.Draconian might not be the better word to describe the Germans for their trying very hard not to repeat passed mistakes, but it could describe whats happening in the US.
 
Thats because The German people that are still alive from yesteryear remember what happened many years ago when their rights were slowly taken away from them under the guise of security. Some countries haven't experienced it and possibly will follow in similar footsteps.Draconian might not be the better word to describe the Germans for their trying very hard not to repeat passed mistakes, but it could describe whats happening in the US.

Indeed. I meant draconian towards the offending parties, not towards its citizenry. The EU is not some sort of utopia as some try to paint it, but we in the US can definitely learn from some of the protections for their citizenry that they have in place.
 
What ever happened to "Don't like it, don't use it?" Getting a little tired of the EU and the ACLU whining like little bitches meanwhile no one is forcing anyone to use these FREE products. Stupid.
 
What ever happened to "Don't like it, don't use it?" Getting a little tired of the EU and the ACLU whining like little bitches meanwhile no one is forcing anyone to use these FREE products. Stupid.

When a company has a near monopoly it is appropriate for the government to step in.

In many circles (particularly younger ones) social media (which in most cases means facebook) has completely taken over the way these people communicate. Not having a facebook profile is pretty much social suicide, as that is the way they all communicate.

A individual can not choose to join a different social network on which they like the privacy terms better, as it would not be facebook, where all their friends are.


A parallel is as follows:

What if telephone providers didn't talk to eachother. If you got a cellphone or landline you could only use it to talk to other people on that same carriers cellphones or landlines.

Furthermore, what if there was one telephone provider that had more people on it than any other provider, by an enormous margin.

The primary way people now communicate (in our example society) is over phones. (Writing letters is sooo yesterday)

Oh, and by the way, the Dominant phone carrier requires that in order to use their network, they get to listen in and collect data on you as they please.

You might not like this, and as such you could choose one of the smaller phone networks, but since they don't talk to each other, you would have no one to talk to on that network, and because phones are the primary way people communicate in this society, you would be socially ostracized.

We had a phone system that was close to this before 1974. There was only one major phone carrier, and it was dominant. There weren't the privacy concerns we have today with facebook, but the federal government broke it up anyway because it was becoming too big, and leaving consumers too little choice. This was the best thing to ever happen to telecommunications in this country. It made for more competition and better service for customers.

IMHO, in order for social networks to compete fairly we need something similar to the way telephone networks function.

Allow people to have their profile in any social network they please. Privacy policies and other things will differ from social network to social network, but by government mandate require them all to be intercompatible, so if you are only on - say - facebook, you can add friends who are only on Google+ or only on Myspace or only on Orkut. this way your choice of social network is not ostracizing. There would be a middle ware handling the communication between all these networks, and each network could only collect data on the customers on its particular service and must have a public privacy policy as to what they do with data.. People could switch at any time without being required to rebuild their friends lists or profiles. (parallel to porting numbers).

This is what we need our government to enforce. Only then will social networking become reasonable.
 
Zarathustra[H];1037590953 said:
When a company has a near monopoly it is appropriate for the government to step in.

In many circles (particularly younger ones) social media (which in most cases means facebook) has completely taken over the way these people communicate. Not having a facebook profile is pretty much social suicide, as that is the way they all communicate.

A individual can not choose to join a different social network on which they like the privacy terms better, as it would not be facebook, where all their friends are.


A parallel is as follows:

What if telephone providers didn't talk to eachother. If you got a cellphone or landline you could only use it to talk to other people on that same carriers cellphones or landlines.

Furthermore, what if there was one telephone provider that had more people on it than any other provider, by an enormous margin.

The primary way people now communicate (in our example society) is over phones. (Writing letters is sooo yesterday)

Oh, and by the way, the Dominant phone carrier requires that in order to use their network, they get to listen in and collect data on you as they please.

You might not like this, and as such you could choose one of the smaller phone networks, but since they don't talk to each other, you would have no one to talk to on that network, and because phones are the primary way people communicate in this society, you would be socially ostracized.

We had a phone system that was close to this before 1974. There was only one major phone carrier, and it was dominant. There weren't the privacy concerns we have today with facebook, but the federal government broke it up anyway because it was becoming too big, and leaving consumers too little choice. This was the best thing to ever happen to telecommunications in this country. It made for more competition and better service for customers.

IMHO, in order for social networks to compete fairly we need something similar to the way telephone networks function.

Allow people to have their profile in any social network they please. Privacy policies and other things will differ from social network to social network, but by government mandate require them all to be intercompatible, so if you are only on - say - facebook, you can add friends who are only on Google+ or only on Myspace or only on Orkut. this way your choice of social network is not ostracizing. There would be a middle ware handling the communication between all these networks, and each network could only collect data on the customers on its particular service and must have a public privacy policy as to what they do with data.. People could switch at any time without being required to rebuild their friends lists or profiles. (parallel to porting numbers).

This is what we need our government to enforce. Only then will social networking become reasonable.

Love the analogy, and that would be pretty interesting but with FB monetizing through the almighty ad dollars, there is no way, without a serious government intervention that this would happen.
 
Zarathustra[H];1037590953 said:
When a company has a near monopoly it is appropriate for the government to step in.

In many circles (particularly younger ones) social media (which in most cases means facebook) has completely taken over the way these people communicate. Not having a facebook profile is pretty much social suicide, as that is the way they all communicate.

A individual can not choose to join a different social network on which they like the privacy terms better, as it would not be facebook, where all their friends are.

A parallel is as follows:

What if telephone providers didn't talk to eachother. If you got a cellphone or landline you could only use it to talk to other people on that same carriers cellphones or landlines.

Furthermore, what if there was one telephone provider that had more people on it than any other provider, by an enormous margin.

The primary way people now communicate (in our example society) is over phones. (Writing letters is sooo yesterday)

Oh, and by the way, the Dominant phone carrier requires that in order to use their network, they get to listen in and collect data on you as they please.

You might not like this, and as such you could choose one of the smaller phone networks, but since they don't talk to each other, you would have no one to talk to on that network, and because phones are the primary way people communicate in this society, you would be socially ostracized.

We had a phone system that was close to this before 1974. There was only one major phone carrier, and it was dominant. There weren't the privacy concerns we have today with facebook, but the federal government broke it up anyway because it was becoming too big, and leaving consumers too little choice. This was the best thing to ever happen to telecommunications in this country. It made for more competition and better service for customers.

IMHO, in order for social networks to compete fairly we need something similar to the way telephone networks function.

Allow people to have their profile in any social network they please. Privacy policies and other things will differ from social network to social network, but by government mandate require them all to be intercompatible, so if you are only on - say - facebook, you can add friends who are only on Google+ or only on Myspace or only on Orkut. this way your choice of social network is not ostracizing. There would be a middle ware handling the communication between all these networks, and each network could only collect data on the customers on its particular service and must have a public privacy policy as to what they do with data.. People could switch at any time without being required to rebuild their friends lists or profiles. (parallel to porting numbers).

This is what we need our government to enforce. Only then will social networking become reasonable.

You're comparing a phone company, which is a necessity, to Facebook, which is not.

You say
Not having a facebook profile is pretty much social suicide

I say it's making the population more socially retarded.
 
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