It's only a matter of time before someone creates an algorithm and app that takes publicly available and tagged photos of people (think FB profiles), and then uses the info to identify all of the people in a photo at a political rally, crime scene, or amateur porn site.
It's already under development by several startups, including ours (except ours isn't for gov't uses, but to map your personal photos with names using facebook pictures).
The cool thing about facebook's photos is that with their API, you can pull the name->XY locations of the picture which has a person tagged to it (making the facial detection portion super easy). Then with the set of name -> faces[], training the facial recognition database becomes even easier.
Facebook it self has a even more sinister potential. Imagine they train a facial recognition database for everyone already tagged in photos on facebook. Then have a iPhone app, which you can take a picture of anyone... which would spit out the name/info/school/interests/everything. There is nothing technologically stopping this, and it will be just a matter of time.
This will be a huge change for people who live in cities, but are currently effectively disconnected from one another. Imagine even just knowing the name of each person you pass on the street, and knowing that they know your name. Huge social change. I think it's positive.
I wouldn't want a bunch of unknowns taking photographs of me. I don't want to imagine a society that take photos of each other without your permission.
Just go ask politely their name or something if you defenetely need to know.
Yeah kind of. Another place that does facebook face mapping is http://www.face.com.
The facial recognition isn't our main feature, just a decoration/extra on top of our actual product/service which is related to photo organization and synchronization.
Microsoft is dead in the sense you don't have to worry about them.
Privacy is dead in the sense that you definitely have to worry about it. Wearing a small IR LED on a cap should be enough to block most CCTV photos of yourself. Most people won't, but if you care, you can take action.
Both are dead in the sense of inevitability. How much longer do you expect the IR LED trick to work?
Why should I worry about losing my privacy? Certainly there are secrets I need to keep, like my bank account details, but those are of a different nature. I won't be surprised if in a couple of decades, anyone on the planet will be able to find out everything I've done all day, complete with high-definition movies of it happening if they want. And, to be honest, I'm quite ok with that.
In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the CIA, has invested in a number of companies specializing in facial recognition, and has also been closely involved in Facebook's funding. If you set aside all the conspiracy theories you can generate from that fact, it's actually kind of cool.
Comparing a person's face against a homogeneous collection of millions other faces is an intractable problem. If you place the search in the context of the social network, however, it becomes much simpler - assuming it's not some random face in the background, you probably only have to travel out a couple degrees of separation to find a probable match. Even if it is a random face on the street, you're aided by the geographical context.
I think Facebook is generally more hype than substance, but they do leave the door open for some pretty interesting ideas.
