Ever since the announcement of Google Glass and after those concept videos that showed people wearing Glass and recognizing people using device’s face detection feature went viral there has been a debate whether this device should have that capability or not as it clearly violates the privacy of the people. Now Google has finally come up with an official statement about this issue and given the company’s stance over face recognition capabilities of its upcoming gadgets.
Google through its announced that it does not intend to approve third-party application that allow users to recognize a person by scanning his or her face using face recognition technology. While Google made it clear that this feature or apps won’t be available on its device it didn’t deny the possibilities of this happening in the future. Google says that it won’t allow other nor it will use the facial recognition tech in Google Glass until there are strong privacy protection for users and people around them.
This is not the first time Google has mentioned its stance about the facial recognition of Glass in public. Two weeks ago the direction of product management for Google Glass Steve Lee also said in a statement what Google said in its post on the social networking site.
Google in its post made it quite clear that no third party apps will be allowed to use the facial recognition feature so it doesn’t have to deal with privacy issues once the device is available publicly.
Google is taking privacy issues related to Glass very seriously. The company has planned that apps won’t be able to take photos while the display of the device is turned off. This will be done so person at the other end could know that person with Google Glass is taking a photo.
Many other policies Google applies to Android apps for ”hate speech, gambling and explicit material,” will also be applied to Google Glass apps made by third party developers. [AllThingsD]