Facebook is undoubtedly one of the more popular ways to share photos with friends online. With the click of a button, everyone from your high school lab partner to former co-workers can see shots from your latest vacation or night out. Depending on who you ask, this is either incredibly convenient or a potential privacy nightmare.
Everyone has that tag-happy friend who snaps dozens of photos at any outing and immediately uploads them to Facebook, regardless of how flattering. How many of you have felt that stab of panic upon receiving an email notification that so-and-so has tagged 27 photos of you on Facebook?
Unfortunately for the photo averse, Facebook has made it easier for people to tag their friends. Back in December, Facebook announced plans for facial-recognition technology that would facilitate the tagging process. Facebook said it would examine newly uploaded photos and compare them to other photos in which you or your friends are tagged in order to make tagging suggestions. In recent months, that facial recognition-based tag suggestion feature was turned on by default, prompting concerns from security experts and regulators alike. Most recently, German data protection officials requested that Facebook disable its facial recognition software and delete any previously stored data.
How did we get here? Pixable took a look back at the history of Facebook photos, starting in 2005, when the photo app made its debut. By 2007, Facebook beats Photobucket, Picasa, and Flickr to become the photo site with the most monthly visitors at 23.9 million. By 2008, it was hosting 10 billion photos and just a year later, Facebook users were uploading 2.7 million photos every 20 minutes. Users broke records on New Year's Eve weekend last year, uploading a record 750 million photos. By the end of the summer, Facebook expects to house 100 billion of your photos.
As the facial-recognition issue demonstrates, Facebook's photo offerings are not without their controversies. Pixable also takes a look at some of the legal and ethical battles that have cropped up over the years. Check out the infographic below for more details.
