Facebook has acquired a facial biometrics startup called FacioMetrics. The startup was founded only last year by students at Carnegie Mellon, and offers machine learning technology designed to analyze faces in real time. The technology allows for filter effects like face-swapping and dog noses to be superimposed onto images of a subject’s face, similar to popular functions available on rival social network Snapchat.
As reported, the acquisition complements Facebook’s purchase earlier this year of MSQRD, the maker of a face-swapping app. Terms of this latest acquisition have not been disclosed. While Facebook’s use of facial biometrics technology has previously got the company into legal trouble due to accusations of privacy violations, its aim with FacioMetrics appears not to enhance facial recognition capabilities, but the ability to automatically alter facial images for entertainment purposes, which should prove relatively uncontroversial.
