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Facebook wants to use your cameras to watch you

Posted at 8:18 AM, Jun 09, 2017
and last updated 2017-06-09 15:34:35-04

If you weren't already a little freaked out about how much Facebook seems to know about you, they apparently want to know even more.

According to a 3 new patents filed by Facebook, they want to use your webcam or smartphone camera to spy on you to determine what type of content or advertising you are interested in.

Facebook is hoping to use the cameras to analyze Facebook users' expressions when they read an article, look at an image or watch a video. By the way, according to the patent, the Facebook user would not be aware that Facebook had taken control of the camera.

In another patent, Facebook would automatically add emotional information to text messages, predicting the user's emotion based on what they typed. Facebook would also base the emotional information on how fast a person was typing and how hard they pressed the keys while typing.

In the third patent, Facebook would capture real-time image data of a face (such as through a selfie) and analyze it to determine the user's emoji and then match it the emoji that Facebook thinks would be best.

Only one of the patents has actually been granted so far and Facebook sent us the following statement:

“We often seek patents for technology we never implement, and patents should not be taken as an indication of future plans.” – Facebook Spokesperson

READ MORE ABOUT PATENTS HERE