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Blippar is an app that uses your smartphone's camera to reveal more about the world through augmented reality .

Today, the company behind the app has announced that facial recognition will be introduced so you can scan other people and reveal their profile.

It's billed as the world's first facial recognition for phones.

The profiles are strictly an opt-in only experience, meaning members of the public have to go through a process to get their faces recognised and turned on before they become “blippable”.

They can switch their profiles ‘on’ and ‘off’ as they wish.

The app can also be used to scan faces on TV or in print - meaning you could look up a particular actor or musician.

"Over 70,000 public figures will be automatically discoverable with information drawn from publicly accessible sources unless they choose to set up their own AR Face profile, giving them control of the information communicated," said Blippar in a press release.

"Users can add personalized content to express their personality in the form of photos, favourite music and current AR mood," the company said.

"As well as discovering who is your celebrity look alike is, there is also an option to build connections between yourself and the millions of objects, concepts and entities that exist in Blippar’s knowledge graph."

(Image: Getty)

Users are becoming more familiar with augmented reality following the success of Pokemon Go in the summer.

Facial recognition is also being explored in various different areas.

For example, Jaguar Land Rover is developing technology that uses facial recognition and gait analysis to unlock car doors.

(Image: Getty)

Cameras mounted under the windows of the doors would capture both video and still images of someone walking and standing by the car.

But it remains to be seen how people deal with having their faces scanned by other smartphone users.

You can download Blippar for both iOS and Android if you want to try it yourself.