Facial recognition software now available on Google Glass

A company based in San Francisco has introduced a new application for Google Glass, allowing the wearable device to recognize faces, further fueling privacy concern issues.

Google has been accused of violating people’s privacy when it has announced Glass, a wearable computer with a camera. However, the public tends to forget that Google is the most used search engine and one of the biggest online advertisers in the world, meaning that it already knows almost everything about you.

Moreover, hundreds of million of smartphones, digital cameras, and other devices capable of taking photos are sold each year, making Google to claim that you will know if something stalks you.

People concerned about meeting Google Glass wearers on the street have one more reason to worry, as the device is now able to recognize faces, courtesy of an application from Lambda Labs.

Lamba Labs announces facial recognition application for Google Glass

Unfortunately, the company is not receiving any good PR from developers. Lambda Labs, a software developer based in San Francisco, has revealed an application with facial recognition support.

Google has previously said that such app will not be available in Glass, but the Terms of Service are not forbidding developers to create such an application.

Mixed feelings over facial recognition software on Glass

The devs say that the new program allows Google Glass users to take a photo and then tag it with details about the people in the image. This fact has triggered the concern of privacy advocates, saying that it is a matter of time before the app can be used for identifying people in real-time.

On the other hand, there are other Glass developers, who see the huge potential of the Lamba Labs application. They have welcomed the program because it could be used for tagging people in Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn posts.

This technique would also allow Glass wearers to link social networking profiles based on the photos processed by the app.

Google says Glass is still being tested and it would be wrong to draw conclusions now

Google claims that it is too early to talk about Glass as a mainstream device. The search giant says that the Explorer edition is only aimed at testers, who can only perform limited actions with it.

Moreover, it will be more than a year before the device exists the beta stage and by that time most privacy concern issues should be addressed.