If you’ve been reluctantly sharing your pictures on Facebook, the company has released a new app this week that will allow you to comfortably do the same thing, but this time, in private with your friends and family.
Available in both Google Play and App Store, the app called “Moments” is currently receiving its reviews from first users. According to some of those, the app provides exactly as advertised, but some other recent photo apps, such as the new Flickr app or Google Photos, are a bit edgier.
Facebook’s private photo sharing app “Moments,” however, has the advantage of offering easier access to all your contacts and Facebook friends you would like to share photos with. Designers behind Moments thought that too many photos of your friends remain hidden in your camera roll because sometimes you don’t feel that those photos are Facebook worthy.
Facebook has lent Moments its facial recognition software – the same one that knows how to automatically tag your friends’ faces when you upload pictures – and with this tool, it can identify frequently photographed people and organize pictures into folders. Sharing them with your friends is, as usually, just one click away.
If you think Facebook’s snooping in your private pictures via facial recognition is a bit too much, you’re probably not in the target audience for this app. Facebook is gradually building a very nice app portfolio, with Moments joining Messenger, the communication platform and Instagram, the number one app in public photo sharing.
Some privacy advocates argue that the new app is on the verge of creepy, mostly because the facial recognition feature comes in by default, and users who dislike it have to specifically opt out of it.
Alvaro Bedoya, CEO at Center on Privacy and Tech at Georgetown Law, complained that Facebook has insisted over the years that the facial recognition be a default setting in their apps, instead of letting users turn it on by choice.
This helps them create one of the largest databases there is, because too few users actually turn it off. Having a way to identify people in pictures is not the problem, but shoving it down the user’s throat is, according to Bedoya.
Image Source: Tom’s Guide