Facebook's Privacy Approach Satisfies at Least One Person

A Connecticut attorney general is dropping a complaint about facial recognition

Over the past couple of months, Facebook has drawn global criticism for a facial recognition feature in its photo application. The feature uses facial recognition to offer suggestions for users when they're tagging photos. Though the feature launched quietly in the U.S. over the winter, a collective outburst of protests from government officials in Europe led the Attorney General of Connecticut to send a scolding letter. George Jepsen complained that Facebook should have made the feature opt-in instead of opt-out, and Facebook promised to address his concerns.

Tuesday afternoon, Jepsen said in a statement that Facebook had satisfactorily addressed the problems and even added a few more features. Evidently a representative from Facebook met with the attorney, and the two of them worked out a solution that curiously didn't actually address Jepsen's original opt-in request.

"Facebook has made significant changes that will provide better service and greater privacy protection to its users, not only in Connecticut, but across the country," Jepsen said in the statement. "The company has been cooperative and diligent in its response and I look forward to working with them in the future to make sure Facebook users’ privacy is protected, which I believe is our shared goal."

Jepsen explains how Facebook addressed the privacy concerns with a series of ads that directed users to their privacy settings. Facebook says that everyone in the U.S. will see the ads at least twice over the next two weeks and has also tweaked the language on email responses regarding fake accounts.

Appropriately, Jepsen announced his little victory on his Facebook page.