Facebook wants to get up close and personal
with its users after a patent was revealed detailing a desire to secretly watch
users through their webcam or smartphone camera, spying on your mood in order
to sell you tailored content or advertisements.
The purpose behind
the invasive idea is to analyse people through the camera in real time while
they browse online and if it recognises you looking happy, bored or sad, it
would deliver an advert fitting your emotion. If you were forlorn, for example,
it would be able to serve an ad to perk you up, or know what products you had
previously looked at online and put them under your nose at just the right
time.
Facebook explains
in the patent application that a user who
looked away during certain content (in their fictional case it was a kitten
video) algorithms for the social network would know to not show more of that
type of content. In another example it describes how the technology could tell
if a user's expression changed while looking at posts or pictures from a
certain person and would show more or less of these in the future.
The social network
has filed several patents over the years on emotion-based technology but this,
based on 'passive imaging data' is perhaps the most unnerving, considering it
would take control of cameras that weren't even switched on by the user.
As
described by CB Insights:
"This patent proposes capturing images of the user through smartphone or
laptop cameras, even when the user is not actively using the camera. By
visually tracking a user's facial expression, Facebook aims to monitor the
user's emotional reactions to different types of content."
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