Photo Magic is Facebook’s solution to quickly share photos with facial recognition

The first time you try the updated app, Messenger will look for the most recent photo in your camera roll that includes one of your Facebook friends.

While the feature is a nice way to ensure users are able to connect over shared memories, it does require a few serious privacy concessions on the part of the user.

“Today, we’re starting to test an optional new feature to make sharing photos in Messenger even easier and more fun”. “If you get a new picture, whether you took that picture in your camera app or in a different app, and it goes to your camera roll, then we’ll face detect on that picture”.

Facebook is testing out Photo Magic, a new facial-recognition feature that prompts users to send photos via Messenger directly to the people in the shots.

The technology Facebook is using for Photo Magic is what’s already powering the Moments app, a quite good Facebook photo sharing app you’ve probably never used. To use Photo Magic, you have to allow Messenger to have access to your camera roll to begin with before it sends you any notifications. Facebook is expected to expand the feature to other countries within the coming months.

Folks will then be encouraged, via a notification, to send those photos to the matched friends in question, of course, using the Messenger app.

Facebook has had facial recognition for photos uploaded to the platform for a while now, and launched the Moments app in June, which hunts through older photos and groups them together by who’s in them.

Yes, your Camera Roll. “With Photo Magic, Messenger recognizes your friends in the photos you take and enables you to share your pictures with the friends in them in just two taps”, said a Facebook spokesperson in an email.