Facebook is currently in the process of releasing a new feature that will help users send photos of their friends through its Messenger app.
The feature, dubbed as Photo Magic, uses facial recognition technology to scan the faces of the people in the photos, Venture Beat reported.
Once activated, the Photo Magic will go through the recent pictures taken and stored by Facebook users. Then, using facial recognition, Photo Magic will identify the users' Facebook friends featured in each photo.
The feature will then ask users if they want to send these photos their friends who were identified in the images.
Photo Magic is Facebook's latest attempt in making its social network more user-friendly. And, given the new feature's functions, it serves as a way of making people feel more connected.
According to Peter Martinazzi, the company's director of product management, Photo Magic was designed based on how users mainly use Facebook's Messenger app.
"What we've seen us that private sending of photos in Messenger is really popular," he told Tech Crunch during an interview. "About 9.5 billion photos were sent inside Messenger in the last month."
"It's growing even faster than Messenger over all, which is growing really fast," he added.
Facebook noted that aside from sharing photos, Photo Magic is also the company's way of persuading users to communicate with one another through Messenger, instead of turning to other online chat services or text messages. By sharing a photo, users can use that as a jumping point to start a conversation with their Facebook friends.
Of course, those who don't want to be constantly bothered by notifications about sending a photo to a friend can disable Photo Magic. They can do this through the Timeline and Tagging Settings section of the Facebook accounts. Providing this option is Facebook's way of providing users total control of their accounts. After all, knowing that Facebook goes through each photo with facial recognition technology could raise some level of privacy concerns for some users.
Currently, the Photo Magic feature is only available to Android users living in Australia. It is then expected to make its way to the iOS devices later this week. According to a Facebook post by David Marcus, the head of the Messenger services, the feature will be rolled out to users in the U.S. and in other regions soon. However, this will depend on how it will be perceived during its testing phase.
