Germany Reopens Facebook Privacy Inquiry

Official says company illegally archiving photos of members without permission.

Data protection officials in Germany reopened an investigation into Facebook's facial recognition technology Wednesday, saying that the social networking giant was illegally compiling a huge database of members' photos without their consent.

The data protection commissioner in Hamburg, Johannes Caspar, suspended the inquiry in June, but said he reopened it after attempts to persuade Facebook to change its policies had failed.