You likely saw all the hubbub last week over folks matching their faces to past historical artworks using the Google Arts & Culture app. This seemed sort of neat so I downloaded to give it a try. I very soon came to the conclusion that I am much more stupid than I previously realized as after about 30 minutes of trying to even find the feature in the application, I gave up. Seems as though I was not alone…in not finding the feature, not just being stupid.



Google confirmed to CNN Tech that the face-matching tool is not available in Illinois and Texas. The company declined to comment on why.

However, experts believe the issue stems from laws in Illinois and Texas that put restrictions on how companies can use biometric data such as facial scans and fingerprints. In 2008, Illinois passed a law that requires companies to let users know when biometric identifiers are collected and how they will be used. It’s also necessary to obtain consent from users before collecting and storing that data. In 2009, Texas passed a similar law.

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Source: [H]ardOCP – No Google Face Matching in Illinois and Texas