FACEBOOK'S controversial face-scanning feature, which can identify users in photos and videos uploaded to the platform, is now available in Europe and Canada - but Brits can avoid it by following one simple step.

The social network has to ask your permission to turn on "Face Recognition", in accordance with an upcoming EU data privacy law, so just tap the box that says "don't allow" to keep it at bay.

You have to opt-in to Facebook's invasive facial-recognition feature. Credit: Facebook

Now you won't have to worry about the invasive feature spotting you in pics shared by you or your friends.

Facebook's shady tech was first introduced outside of Canada in 2011, but was halted in the EU the following year after protests from regulators and privacy campaigners.

Angry users in the US are also suing the company for billions over the feature, which they claim was targeting them without their consent.

What is facial-recognition: the controversial tech explained Facial-recognition is a way of identifying or verifying who a person is by scanning their face with a computer.

Its main use is to make sure a person is who they say there are – like Apple's Face ID, which uses facial recognition to unlock the new iPhone X.

But it's also being used by law enforcement in places like China to create a suspect database and to spot criminals in crowds.

In Apple's case, the FaceID feature on the iPhone X uses various sensors to work out how much light it needs to illuminate your face.

It then floods your face with infrared light, which is outside the visible spectrum of light.

A dot projector will produce more than 30,000 dots of this invisible light, creating a 3D map of your face.

An infrared camera then captures images of this dot pattern.

Using all that info, your phone can identify your face's defining features – like your cheekbone shape, or the distance between your eyes – to verify your identity.

One of the biggest concerns is about how the tech is "racist", potentially because many of the people creating these systems are white males.

Back in December, it emerged that a mum and her son – both Chinese – were both able to access the same iPhone X using Face ID.

Google was also implicated in a face-scanning gaffe, after its Photos app algorithm auto-tagged two black people as "gorillas".

More recently, the MIT Media Lab found that facial recognition was biased towards white males.

It also doesn't help that Facebook is stuck in a privacy quagmire over its latest data breach, after a company called Cambridge Analytica allegedly scooped the info of 87 million users without their knowledge.

Alternatively, if you opt-in to Face Recognition, Facebook's AI systems will scour the pixels in your profile pics and other images you're tagged in to designate you a unique code.

It calls this digital identifier a "template".

When new photos are uploaded, Facebook matches the faces in the image to templates of relevant users and prompts them to apply the name tags.

It also uses the tech to check when a fraudster is trying to use a stolen photo as their profile pic and to serve up new friends suggestions.

Facebook says that it doesn't apply Face Recognition to users under-18, and if you opt-in and later change your mind you can still turn it off via the Settings panel.

Facebook says its controversial face-scanning feature won't be applied to those under-18 Credit: Getty - Contributor

As with all its other features, the ultimate aim is to get you to spend more time on the platform so it can show you more targeted ads and keep raking in billions in revenue.

The feature is bundled in with a slew of new Facebook permissions being rolled out ahead of a new privacy law known as the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which comes into force on 25 May.

But its future remains up in the air in Europe until the watchdog involved gives it the thumbs up.

In this case that responsibility lies with Ireland's data protection commissioner, which oversees privacy right for Facebook's non-American users because the firm's headquarters are based in the low-tax country.

"There are a number of outstanding issues on which we await further responses from Facebook," Ireland's data protection commissioner told the BBC.

"In particular, the Irish DPC is querying the technology around facial recognition and whether Facebook needs to scan all faces - ie those without consent as well - to use the facial recognition technology.

"The issue of compliance of this feature with GDPR is therefore not settled at this point."

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