Breaking! ‘Dark Knight’ Shooting Suspect Was Medical Student

Facebook's Facial Recognition Policies Draws Senate's Attention

Social network giant defends use of facial recognition technology and addresses concerns about user privacy as lawmakers seek answers on Facebook's tag

Members of a Senate subcommittee sought answers from a senior Facebook official about the social network's usage of facial-recognition technology at a hearing on Wednesday, marking the latest phase of the ongoing scrutiny the company has faced from privacy-conscious lawmakers and regulators.

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), the chairman of the Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law, challenged Facebook's policy of setting the tag suggestions facial-recognition feature as a default, and then allowing users to opt out.

Franken was also critical of the privacy controls the company makes available to its users, saying at one point that it takes six clicks to navigate to the first page that mentions the term "facial recognition." Similarly, he suggested that the company has not been as forthcoming as it could be about how much data it collects and how that information is used, a familiar refrain from critics of the social network's privacy policies.

Facebook Recognizes You

Facebook's tag suggestions feature uses facial-recognition technology to automatically suggest the names of people pictured in new photos that users upload to the site. Tag suggestions has been offline for several weeks as Facebook has been conducting maintenance, a move that was necessitated by the widespread usage of the feature, according to Rob Sherman, Facebook's manager of privacy and public policy. Sherman said that the tag suggestions feature is set to come back online "soon," though he did not specific a timeframe.

Breaking! ‘Dark Knight’ Shooting Suspect Was Medical Student

AURORA, Colo. — A former medical student in a gas mask barged into a crowded Denver-area theater during a midnight showing of the Batman movie on Friday, hurled a gas canister and then opened fire, killing 12 people and injuring at least 50 others in one of the deadliest mass shootings in recent U.S. history.

When the gas began to spread, some moviegoers thought it was a stunt that was part of the “The Dark Knight Rises,” one of the most highly anticipated films of the summer. They saw a silhouette of a person in the smoke near the screen, first pointing a gun at the crowd and then shooting.