As per a patent owned by Facebook, one of India’s favorite social networking platform, the website can use the front cameras of smartphones and webcams of laptops to secretly watch and record responses of users to anything that is posted on the site.
The images of how the users feel while coming across different types of content on Facebook will be analyzed and the information will then be used to keep users on the site for a longer time.
For instance, if you smile while looking at a picture of your friend, Facebook will capture your emotions and display more posts of that friend in your News Feed. Or if you looked away from your screen while a particular type of content is being played, Facebook will then no more show similar content in your News Feed.
The patent was applied for by the social media biggie way back in February 2014 but was granted a year and a half later in August 2015. Though it has existed for quite some time, it was only recently identified by CBInsights.
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Last year, a picture posted by Facebook founder and chief executive officer, Mark Zuckerberg went viral. In the picture, his laptop’s webcam and microphone could be clearly seen covered with a tape and the public did make a big deal about it. But the reason behind Zuckerberg’s laptop webcam and microphone being covered with tape could not be discovered. Now, with the discovery of Facebook’s patent, the speculations around that picture might get triggered all over again.
Supposedly, the site hasn’t yet made use of the technology but since it owns the patent, the chances that it will use it at some point in the future cannot be stamped out.
