Photo Storage App Agrees To Erase Biometric Data To Resolve FTC Claims

On January 11, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced it has settled with a California-based photo app developer involving allegations that it was building and using its users' photos and videos to create facial recognition technology without their express consent.

Facial recognition software is typically comprised of three steps: detection, mapping, and identification. During the detection step, facial recognition software is developed to distinguish an individual's face in an image or video from, say, a toaster. To do this, developers will train the software by introducing it to photos of known human faces. Once the software can distinguish a face from other objects, then it will analyze the face by mapping facial features, such as by measuring the width of the nose, eyes, mouth, and chin. Once the software has successfully mapped an individual's facial features, it will typically then identify the individual in the image with the subject in question.