Facebook has developed a plan to turn its users into the stars of advertising campaigns through new technology which can automatically scan people’s photographs and identify which products are featured in them.

The social network was granted a patent in the US for a system which can detect photos people have uploaded that feature items such as alcoholic drinks and snacks. The company would then pass those images to the brands, which would turn them into adverts for other Facebook users to see.

One example given in the patent filing is a Facebook user uploading a photograph of a party in which they are pictured holding a bottle of Grey Goose vodka. The social network could automatically detect the bottle of vodka in the photograph and send the image to Grey Goose to be turned into an online advert for the product, using the original photograph.

The patent filing suggests that the adverts would only be targeted to a person’s Facebook friends if they had limited their privacy settings so that only their friends could see the image. As the patent did not go into the specifics of how the system would work, it is unclear whether users would be able to opt out of it.