If you’re the type of person to upload photos to Facebook in huge batches, you know just how useful automatic tagging can be. But Facebook’s constantly improving its facial recognition, and now it’s gotten so good that it doesn’t even need to see your face anymore.
According to New Scientist, Facebook’s artificial intelligence team has been working on an experimental recognition algorithm to identify people even when their faces aren’t clear by using numerous characteristic cues. Yann LeCun, head of the team, says “you can recognize Mark Zuckerberg very easily, because he always wears a gray T-shirt.”
After all, people are also often able to recognize others without seeing their face. Facebook says it’s experimental algorithm is currently identifying people with 83 percent accuracy. The conditions aren’t specified, but that sounds like a solid success rate, especially given it’s mainly a convenience tool for the end user.
Of course, this is also beneficial to Facebook, which wants you to rely on it for all your photographic needs; it’s recently-launched Moments app helps you easily share photos by scanning your camera roll with facial recognition.
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➤ Facebook can recognise you in photos even if you’re not looking [New Scientist via Engadget]
Read next: Facebook launches Moments app to find and share photos of your friends using facial recognition
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