Facebook buys facial recognition company

Facebook has announced that it has acquired Face.com. This company makes facial recognition software that the social networking site probably wants to use for its photo service, which already has such features.

The acquisition amount was not disclosed, but Face.com says on its blog that the company will focus on mobile services with its new owner. More features may be added to the mobile version of Facebook in the field of facial recognition.

Currently, Facebook has already built in automatic facial recognition on the desktop version of its social site, whereby the software presents recognized faces to the user, after which they can easily be tagged.

Facebook has been criticized by privacy organizations in the past for its facial recognition software. Such software would violate users’ privacy, but due to the purchase of Face.com, it appears that the social networking site does not care about the criticism.