CHRONICLE. The machines are getting better at recognising people. Anonymity is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain. Ny Teknik reporter Donald Wiklund about the consequences.
the Next battle between technology companies is all about your face. Russian app Findface is a clear example of what can be at stake when the machines are getting better at face recognition. Technology companies the world over battle is now on to develop the most advanced software to teach machines to recognize our faces.
But how good are these systems to manage large amounts of data? It wants to researchers at the University of Washington to find out with his Megaface Challenge, a kind of world championships for face recognition.
the Team has entered a million images from the bildtjänsten Flickr in a database. These photos are visible 690 572 different faces. Companies who want to be in the race, you can then download the database to see how good their software is capable of managing a million possible matches.
Winner in the last Megaface-the championship became Google’s program Facenet, with a hit rate of 75%. But it is actually the runner-up – Russian Ntech Lab – who have received the most attention after the race.
Ntech Lab stands behind the app Findface, launched in Russia in the winter. With the service, users can take a photo of a stranger on the town and enter the picture in the app. By scanning of the open profile pictures in Vkontakte, a Russian social network with 200 million users, can Findface then determine the person’s identity with a 70% certainty, according to Ntech Lab.
the Founders lifts up to Findface can be used to find new friends or in dejtingsyfte. But in the hands of the Russian nättroll, the app has instead become a powerful tool to reveal people’s identity.
In the spring, started a campaign on a Russian web forum Dvach with the objective to find out the real names of porrfilmsskådespelare and prostitutes. With the help of the Findface several of these persons are identified. Screenshots from their pages on Vkontakte, with photographs and other details, spread rapidly through the network. Even the relatives of the women being tracked down to be served this "information".
In interviews swear himself the founder Maxim Perlin free from liability, and says there is something that Ntech Lab could do to prevent these women from being harassed. The company says, however, that in the future, should do everything you can to "protect Facebook users from potential threats."
Nothing is black-and-white. Face recognition is a technology with great potential. But Findface is a clear example of the problems that can occur when we open the Pandora’s box.
the Software in the app opens up the possibility for mass surveillance that would have made the Stasi or the KGB green with envy. Whether Findface reach outside Russia or not, it is time to think about what happens when we can no longer be a face in the crowd. And if it companies are not willing to take responsibility we must consider how high the price to use their technology really is. It is the least we can require of each other.
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