Face.com shutters APIs, iOS app

Face-recognition startup Face.com is shutting down its application programming interface (APIs) for developers and Klik iOS app less than a month after it was acquired by Facebook.

Face.com's homepage said that as part of the process of being acquired by the social network, it needs to "close up existing products and services" to focus on new products at Facebook and are working with existing developers to transition from its APIs.

The startup did offer alternative service providers for developers' consideration.

In its user forum, Face.com's head of product and business development Dan Barak, wrote: "Regarding alternatives, OpenCV offers decent open source face detection and face recognition, and there are commercial face recognition SDK options available for integration. If you're developing a mobile app, check out iOS' and Android's built-in face detection functionality."

As for Klik, it issued a notice saying that photos which users have been tagged in or taken using Klik were available for downloads until Jul. 20. Face.com has since disposed of the data collected in connection with the use of the Klik app as it did not migrate the data to Facebook, the company stated.

Facebook had previously faced criticisms over its photo-tagging functions, which watchers say breached user privacy and warned it could result in undesirable photos being circulated online.