Ready for face recognition?

GOOGLE is working on a mobile application that would allow users to take photos of people?s faces in order to access their personal information, a director for the project said last week.

In order to be identified by the software, people would have to check a box agreeing to give Google permission to access their pictures and profile information, said Hartmut Neven, the Google engineering director for image-recognition development.

Google?s Profiles product includes a username, phone number and e-mail address. Google has not said what personal data might be displayed once a person is identified by its facial-recognition system.

?We recognize that Google has to be extra careful when it comes to these [privacy] issues, ?

Neven told CNN.

?Face recognition we will bring out once we have acceptable privacy models in place.?

While Google has begun to establish how the privacy features would work, Neven did not say when the company intends to release the product, and a Google spokesman said there is no release timeline.

The technology wouldn?t necessarily be rolled out in a separate application, a Google spokesman said.

Instead, facial recognition could be issued as an update to an existing Google tool, such as its image search engine. Google has had the technical capabilities to implement this type of search engine for years.

? CNN