Users To Get More Facebook Notifications, This Time About Untagged Photos

Facebook users are some of the most overly stimulated people on the planet. Every single day, notifications pop up to alert them to new messages, posts, updates, reminders, and more. Now, the social network is adding yet another beep on the list by notifying users of photos that they were not tagged in.

Using artificial intelligence and advanced facial recognition technology, Facebook will be alerting users when a photo of them was uploaded but where they were not tagged, Fortune reports. This could actually have some huge advantages such as when the users who uploaded the photo are not friends with or don’t know the name of all the people in the picture. However, this could also mean even more information overload.

The new feature went live on Tuesday, which means that users can expect their notification icons to blow up if they have tons of untagged photos. On that note, users do have a fair amount of control over whether or not the photos are going to be published, left it alone, or even to contact the person who uploaded the photo. So that could mean even more notifications for the uploader.

Anyone who does not want to be bothered with this new feature can actually block it by essentially removing the facial recognition map of their features, TechCrunch reports. Thanks to the addition of an opt-out setting with regards to the facial recognition on its video and photo content, Facebook is providing people with the option to not have their faces automatically tagged.

The rollout of the new feature will occur slowly over the next few weeks to all users throughout the world except in Canada and the EU. Both regions have privacy laws that effectively block the use of facial recognition software by social media companies. Facebook does plan to argue this point, however, which could mean a rollout to absolutely everywhere.