Facebook's Moments app won't come to Europe

Facebook launched Moments, a new photo-sharing app, in the US last week. But it won’t be rolled out to Europe because it’s worried that European regulators will object to its use of facial recognition.

The app uses facial recognition software to dig up old photos of your friends from your camera roll.

Facebook's head of policy in Europe, Richard Allan, told the Wall Street Journal that regulators stand in the way of a European launch. “Regulators have told us we have to offer an opt-in choice to people to do this,” he explained.

“We don’t have an opt-in mechanism so it is turned off until we develop one." Allan said that Facebook doesn’t have a development timeline for such a mechanism.

Facebook has run into trouble with European regulators over facial recognition in the past. The social network was forced to withdraw the technology for European users in 2012 after an audit by the Irish Data Protection Commissioner.