http://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/sciencecommunication/2014/08/18/why-you-should-be-worried-about-facial-recognition-technology/
Why you should be worried about facial recognition technology Everybody knows the big success that Facebook is and how popular it is among online users. The network has some pretty big numbers, with more than 1.2 billion active users and 208 300 photos uploaded at every minute. This amount of data has allowed Facebook to work on a cutting edge face recognition algorithm called DeepFace, which achieved an accuracy of 97.35% on face recognition, better results than a billion dollar software being developed by the FBI and almost as good as the average human (97.5% accurate). Facebook’s DeepFace generating a front face image from a lateral photo. Image credit: Facebook. If you are a Facebook user you may already have seen suggestions to mark the face of someone you know on pictures. Facebook don’t always get it right, but by evaluating if the person in the picture is the right person or not you are giving feedback to Facebook, helping them to make their algorithm even better. iPhoto 2009 facial recognition. It isn’t an easy task and there’s still lot’s of work to be done. Image credit to Raven on Flickr. The fact that Facebook know who your friends are and all their connections gives a clue on who’s the person on the picture with you, which helps a lot on the analysis of the images by reducing the possibilities. DeepFace is not currently implemented on the social network, it’s an independent and much more complex research, so why should you be worried about it? Imagine yourself on a world where you can take a picture of anyone and with just a simple search on the web you would know who the person is, who are they friends, all the pictures where this person appears and even the location where the pictures where taken. This system would be a huge step forward on the identification of criminals or on the search for missing people, but it would also generate a whole new privacy issue. Would you allow someone to take a picture of you? Even trough such a precise and fast facial recognition algorithm is maybe decades away from becoming a reality, it’s not impossible. In fact, it would be such a powerful tool that the government and private companies wouldn’t think twice to invest on it. Last week the FBI arrested a 14 year fugitive with the help of their face recognition algorithm, generating return to their investment. Facebook’s DeepFace proved to be even more accurate, which may give us a clue of a scary future. Image credit to Intel Free Press on Flickr It might seem exaggerated but on the day facial recognition is fully implemented there will be no way to avoid it. Just by walking outside security cameras will be recording you, you will appear on the background of other persons pictures or be seen by their smart glasses. We may live a time of lack of privacy where we can be found anytime by whoever will be on the control of this technology. Of course that there’s a enormous range of interesting things that can be done with this technology, and it may not follow this way, things will just depend on the interests of it’s owner. __._,_.___ ------------------------------ Posted by: "Beowulf" <[email protected]> ------------------------------ Visit Your Group <https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/grendelreport/info;_ylc=X3oDMTJmcGVyMjhrBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzIwMTk0ODA2BGdycHNwSWQDMTcwNTMyMzY2NwRzZWMDdnRsBHNsawN2Z2hwBHN0aW1lAzE0MDg0NjA4MDk-> [image: Yahoo! Groups] <https://groups.yahoo.com/neo;_ylc=X3oDMTJlNjJ0Y2FpBF9TAzk3NDc2NTkwBGdycElkAzIwMTk0ODA2BGdycHNwSWQDMTcwNTMyMzY2NwRzZWMDZnRyBHNsawNnZnAEc3RpbWUDMTQwODQ2MDgwOQ--> • Privacy <https://info.yahoo.com/privacy/us/yahoo/groups/details.html> • Unsubscribe <[email protected]?subject=Unsubscribe> • Terms of Use <https://info.yahoo.com/legal/us/yahoo/utos/terms/> __,_._,___ -- -- Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "PoliticalForum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
