dannybananny
Jedi Council Member
The news that facial recognition software is to be made freely available to web developers has raised concerns about the pervasive nature of the internet and the threat it poses to people's privacy.
The latest scare story concerns Face.com, a company that has developed a method of identifying people in videos and photographs that it claims is 90 per cent accurate. It works by measuring the arrangement of features such as eyes, nose and mouth.
Although the company is not new, it only made its Photo Finder software feely available recently - and it already claims that 5,000 developers are using it.
The concern is that users will be able to gather information about people armed with only a single photograph of them. Indeed, they do not even need to know the identity of the person in the photograph before they start searching the web for the subject's details.
Gil Hirsch, Face.com's chief executive officer, explained: "You can basically search for people in any photo. You could search for family members on Flickr, in newspapers, or in videos on YouTube."
Of course, the main concern is that people will not search for family members at all. Employers could use it to check up on the extramural activities of their staff, for example. And while the practice of 'Googling' people has become relatively common, the facial recognition aspect takes it a stage further.
According to a Sunday Times report, one journalist who tested the software uncovered "a slew of unseen and untagged pictures taken by distant friends over several years, triggering forgotten memories of holidays, parties and university life. It also produced a catalogue of pictures for each friend - amounting to an intimate photographic diary of their lives."
Until now, the use of face detection technology has only been used by the UK Border Agency and within closed communities on social networks. Google has a tool called Picasa, which allows users to organise their photos by tagging all matching faces.
Privacy activists, who have long been worried about the growth of monitoring devices like CCTV, regard the growth of facial recognition technologies as another assault on people's freedoms.
"I think this will make many people very uneasy," said Simon Davies, director of Privacy International. "The regulators have been hugely behind the curve on protecting people's privacy on the internet. We need to push for much tighter international rules."
The technology does have its supporters though. The Red Cross believes it could be a useful tool in the aftermath of humanitarian disasters like the Haitian earthquake, because it could help reunite families.
Another problem for opponents of Face.com is the eagerness with which apparently intrusive technologies are being adopted by young people growing up with the internet and social networking sites.
Last week Facebook launched a new tool in the US called Places, which allows members of the world's biggest social network to 'check in' to venues like clubs and bars using their mobile phones. Their exact location is then published to their network on the internet.
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/67597,news-comment,technology,face-recognition-software-raises-internet-privacy-concerns-facebook-facecom
The latest scare story concerns Face.com, a company that has developed a method of identifying people in videos and photographs that it claims is 90 per cent accurate. It works by measuring the arrangement of features such as eyes, nose and mouth.
Although the company is not new, it only made its Photo Finder software feely available recently - and it already claims that 5,000 developers are using it.
The concern is that users will be able to gather information about people armed with only a single photograph of them. Indeed, they do not even need to know the identity of the person in the photograph before they start searching the web for the subject's details.
Gil Hirsch, Face.com's chief executive officer, explained: "You can basically search for people in any photo. You could search for family members on Flickr, in newspapers, or in videos on YouTube."
Of course, the main concern is that people will not search for family members at all. Employers could use it to check up on the extramural activities of their staff, for example. And while the practice of 'Googling' people has become relatively common, the facial recognition aspect takes it a stage further.
According to a Sunday Times report, one journalist who tested the software uncovered "a slew of unseen and untagged pictures taken by distant friends over several years, triggering forgotten memories of holidays, parties and university life. It also produced a catalogue of pictures for each friend - amounting to an intimate photographic diary of their lives."
Until now, the use of face detection technology has only been used by the UK Border Agency and within closed communities on social networks. Google has a tool called Picasa, which allows users to organise their photos by tagging all matching faces.
Privacy activists, who have long been worried about the growth of monitoring devices like CCTV, regard the growth of facial recognition technologies as another assault on people's freedoms.
"I think this will make many people very uneasy," said Simon Davies, director of Privacy International. "The regulators have been hugely behind the curve on protecting people's privacy on the internet. We need to push for much tighter international rules."
The technology does have its supporters though. The Red Cross believes it could be a useful tool in the aftermath of humanitarian disasters like the Haitian earthquake, because it could help reunite families.
Another problem for opponents of Face.com is the eagerness with which apparently intrusive technologies are being adopted by young people growing up with the internet and social networking sites.
Last week Facebook launched a new tool in the US called Places, which allows members of the world's biggest social network to 'check in' to venues like clubs and bars using their mobile phones. Their exact location is then published to their network on the internet.
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/67597,news-comment,technology,face-recognition-software-raises-internet-privacy-concerns-facebook-facecom
