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Facebook will notify you when you're in a photo—even if you’re not tagged

Facebook is changing the game once again, this time when it comes to facial recognition—and it's for a surprisingly good reason. Starting today, the social media platform will be sending you a notification to let you know when your face shows up in photos you haven't been tagged in.

The reason why? To prevent people from impersonating others on Facebook.

Read more: How to find your top nine Instagram posts of 2017

“Powered by the same technology we’ve used to suggest friends you may want to tag in photos or videos, these new features help you find photos that you’re not tagged in and help you detect when others might be attempting to use your image as their profile picture,” Joaquin Quiñonero Candela, Facebook's Director of Applied Machine Learning, shared

“Now, if you’re in a photo and are part of the audience for that post, we’ll notify you, even if you haven’t been tagged. You’re in control of your image on Facebook and can make choices such as whether to tag yourself, leave yourself untagged, or reach out to the person who posted the photo if you have concerns about it.”

Pretty cool, right? Plus, it's simple to work, too. They're pairing these tools with a single “on/off” control, so if your tag suggestions setting is currently set to “none,” then your default face recognition setting will be set to “off” and will remain that way until you decide to change it.

Not to mention, it's also a way for people who are visually impaired to know more about who is in the photos they stumble across on Facebook. With face recognition, people who use screen readers will know who appears in photos in their News Feed, even if people aren’t tagged.

See how it works below:


[Photo by: Facebook]

What are your thoughts on Facebook's newest update? Let us know in the comments below!