It's happening in the U.S. too, and I'm not hearing anyone talk about it, so thank you for calling attention! I found this post hidden among my FB feed a couple days ago:

"Face recognition
Introducing face recognition for more features
Hi, Cova. We're always working to make Facebook better, so we're adding more ways to use face recognition apart from just suggesting tags. For example, face recognition technology can do things such as:

• Find photos you're in but haven't been tagged in
• Help protect you against strangers who use your photo
• Tell people with visual impairments who's in your photo or video

You control face recognition. This setting is on, but you can turn it off at any time, which applies to features we may add later.

–
The Facebook Team
Go to Settings Learn More"

And I had to physically opt out of the service in my settings. They are automatically turning it on.