Google shoots down talks of facial recognition for Goggles

Google has denied reports that it is preparing to add facial recognition features to its Goggles mobile application.

The company was said to be working on an application which would allow a mobile phone user to take a picture of a person, whose contact information could then be pulled up through the Google Profiles service.

In a CNN report, Google image-recognition engineering director Hartmut Neven claimed that the company was developing the facial recognition application.

"People are asking for it all the time, but as an established company like Google, you have to be way more conservative than a little startup that has nothing to lose," Neven was quoted as saying.

"Technically, we can pretty much do all of these things."

According to Google, however, speculation about an imminent release is premature.

"As we've said for more than a year, we will not add facial recognition to Goggles unless we have strong privacy protections in place," a company spokesperson told V3.co.uk.

"We're still working on them. We have nothing to announce at this time."

While a facial recognition system could be useful in helping users build their contact databases, the feature could also raise major concerns for privacy of those who do not want strangers looking up their personal details.