Software, used by the Government and social networks for facial recognition, is being released into the public domain, it was revealed this weekend.
The tool from Face.com analyses pictures, identifying the location of prominent features such as the nose and eyes, and can then search the internet for other pictures of the same subject.
It has now been released to developers and could be incorporated into a number of new offerings.
Gil Hirsch, chief executive (CEO) of Face.com, told The Sunday Times: "We have launched a service that allows developers to take our facial recognition technology and apply it immediately to their own applications."
"The technology is already being used by 5,000 developers. You can basically search for people in any photo."
The software is already used by the UK Border Agency and on social networks for the purpose of tagging photos, but the news it is set to be released to the public has had a mixture of responses.
Simon Davies, director of Privacy International, said: "I think this will make many people very uneasy."
"The regulators have been hugely behind the curve of protecting people's privacy on the internet. We need to push for much tighter international rules."
However, there is nothing in place to stop the distribution of such a product, whatever the concerns may be.
