The feature will prompt the user with the question, “Is this [name of person]?” when it recognizes a friend’s photo, explained Matt Steiner, engineering lead on the Google+ photos team.
“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, and you can turn the feature on or off in Google+ settings”, Steiner wrote in a blog.
Facebook introduced a similar feature last year, but faced a storm of criticism from privacy advocates and governmental agencies because the feature was active by default and did not require permission of the person being tagged. The European Union data protection authorities even called for an investigation into the Facebook feature.
Commenting on the new Google+ feature, Chester Wisniewski, senior security advisor with Sophos Canada, said in a blog: “Despite the fact that I am not comfortable with my information being gathered in this manner, providing people with a choice is never a bad thing. It is up to every individual to make an 'informed' choice about how their personal information is shared and asking their permission is the right approach”.