Facebook May Build Technology To Detect Eye Movement And Emotions, Already Holds Two Related Patents

There is a very fine line between making things more convenient for the users and edging into a slightly creepier space. The social media giant, Facebook seems to have crossed that line far and away.

The social networking service company could build a technology that can detect your eye movement and emotions in future.

The technology

In reply to how the company plans to use this technology, Facebook said that the company is not building any such software, but it holds two patents titled “Dynamic eye tracking calibration” and the other “Techniques for emotion detection and content delivery” – for the eye-tracking and emotion detection technology. However, Facebook did not deny the chances of using it in the future.

” We’re always exploring how new technologies and methods can improve our services, and eye-based identification is one way that we could potentially reduce consumer friction and add security for people when they log into Oculus or access Oculus content. If we implement this technology in the future, we will do so with people’s privacy in mind, just as we do with movement information (which we anonymize in our systems),” Facebook said in the statement.

Use of Patent

The patent titled “Techniques for Emotion Detection and Content Delivery” was filed in February 2014 while the second one -”Dynamic Eye Tracking Calibration” was filed in October 2017 by Facebook.

The social media giant is also facing a lawsuit suit in Illinois which alleges storing biometric data without the consent of its users. According to the law, any company or private entity is prohibited to ‘collect, capture, purchase, receive through trade, or otherwise obtain a person’s or a customer’s biometric identifier or biometric information’ without users’ consent. A Federal judge has ruled that Facebook must face a class action lawsuit for this breach.

Today, every targeted advertisement and push notification is a reminder that Facebook’s algorithms know your every move. It is scary how it can not only track your location, friends, job and online habits but one day it could also track your eye movements.

In about 500 pages of documents, Facebook has answered more questions and elaborated on those who were not quite answered during the US Congress hearings over Data harvesting scandal, two months ago.

Also published on Medium.