Facebook adds new face recognition feature to notify users when they're spotted in photos

Facebook has just announced it has added a couple of tools that are optional to users of its social network. These new tools are supposed to help Facebook users find out when they appear in someone else's photos.

A new option has been added that, when enabled, should send you notifications whenever you're spotted in a photo without you being tagged. It can also act as a security wall if someone else wants to use your photo for their own profile.

Facebook is giving you three options once it detects that you appear in a photo, but you haven't been tagged. So, you can either tag yourself in the photo, leave yourself untagged, or try to reach out to the person who posted the image.

The new feature has been implemented with the help of face recognition technology. Facebook's technology analyzes pixels in photos you're already tagged in and comes out with a string of numbers called templates. Once photos and videos are uploaded to Facebook's system, they are compared to the template.

You'll notice there's a new Face Recognition option that you can enable/disable. Basically, there's just one switch for the whole face recognition features Facebook implemented rather than one for each.

According to Facebook, these new features should be available starting this week in all regions with two exceptions – Canada and Europe – where the company doesn't offer face recognition technology.