‘Find My Face’: Google+ rolls out facial recognition

Internet giant Google is rolling out a new feature on its social network, Google+, called “Find My Face”, that allows users to find themselves in photos posted by friends.

“Around the holidays, many of us get together with friends and family, and if you’re like me, you take lots of photos! Tagging those photos can be a lot of work. So today we’re launching Find My Face, an easier way to tag photos of yourself and your friends,” said Google+ photos team engineer Matt Steiner in a post

The new feature, which will be added to Google+ in the coming days, is opt-in only which allows Google to sidestep privacy concerns raised when social networking rival Facebook added facial recognition in an opt-out style earlier this year.

“By turning on Find My Face, Google+ can prompt people you know to tag your face when it appears in photos. Of course, you have control over which tags you accept or reject,” he explained. “We hope this makes tagging your photos much easier.”

Google remains undaunted in its bid to create a flourishing online community that can go toe-to-toe with social networking powerhouse Facebook.

The California firm’s popular products and services will increasingly be woven into its nascent but fast-growing Google+ social network to make joining irresistible, executives said at an internet conference in October.

“We are in an enviable position that we have people who come to Google,” Vic Gundotra, vice president in charge of Google+, said at a Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco.

“We are in this for the long haul… By Christmas you will see Google+ strategy coming together.”

Google+ has attracted more than 40-million users since it opened to the public in September, but has a long way to go to catch up with Facebook’s membership of approximately 800-million.