Google Picasa’s facial recognition features take control of your identity
By Dave Jeyes
Yesterday Google announced the latest version of its Picasa photo album software which uses facial recognition to track who is in each photo. Anyone can tag a photo with your name and Google will keep that facial fingerprint of you indefinitely.
The new feature, dubbed ‘name tags,’ is designed to help you automatically track which of your friends and family are in the pictures that you upload. The feature starts by grouping pictures of people that look similar and asks you to tag who is in the picture. Once you label a photo with a clear view of someone’s face, Google will then use facial recognition to tag any subsequent photos of them.
The default setting is that other people that view your pictures cannot see the people you have tagged, but does that mean that the information is private? While many of us have entrusted some level of private information to Google, our facial recognition profile is at the core of our identity. Further, it may be your sweet Aunt or Grandmother that hands over your identity to the company, unbeknownst to you.
Another problem arises when one of your friends decides to make their name tags public. You could see pictures labeled with your name popping up on the Web without your knowledge. While this information is not necessary included in search results, it can still prove problematic.
This is also a larger issue for parents with small children. Other family members could tag photos of your child on the Internet. If a predator were to find pictures labeled with a location and a full name, he could gather enough information on your child to pose as a family friend in an attempt to lure your child from safety.
What is Google’s advice on keeping your children safe? If you happen to actually notice the tag, all you can do is to contact the owner of the album and ask them to make it private. This reactive method seems more akin to trying to slam the lid on Pandora’s Box than an actual privacy control for your identity.
All of this begs the question of what Google intends to do with your identity. The Privacy Policy says that you can opt out of the service, but they may keep offline backup copies in their archive. Google says that it never shares personally identifiable information, but what is more personal than your facial recognition profile, even if it isn’t attached to your name?
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September 3rd, 2008
Please tell me this is like some kind of stupid scare and that nothing this privacy breaking could ever be allowed on the internet
September 3rd, 2008
If it is ok for anyone to:
1. take a photo of you
2. tag the photo with your name or whatever they want
3. publish that photo
Why does it raise privacy concerns that a sub-set of 2 can be automated? These systems have been deployed in airports for a while, and I am sure around important government buildings.
September 3rd, 2008
What’s the difference between your Aunt Mildred posting a picture of you on her Flickr with your name as a tag and Google doing this for you? Will Flickr remover the tag? Will random ISPs remove tags of you from people’s blogs because you object. This will make it easier for people to tag, but doesn’t really change anything from the systems we currently have.
September 3rd, 2008
Facebook does the same already.
September 4th, 2008
Let us not forget about the bogey man stalking our children at every step just looking for ways to grasp at them whenever we aren’t looking.
Never mind that family members are a far higher threat to kids than some Internet stranger.
I totally agree with Allan and Josh. This is just automating something that Aunt Ethel can already do manually.
I say don’t trust your family and dictate to them your own privacy policy. They are probably a bigger threat to your privacy than Google.
September 4th, 2008
If you are going to write in English, please learn to write english.
It does not “beg the question” - it raises the question.
September 4th, 2008
Get off your high horse, ajd4096!!!
The phrase “…begs the question…” is NOT poor english at all.
It is a phrase that is often used in a rhetorical context, such as journalism, written text, and speeches. It is not uncommon to hear it used in casual conversation.
Perhaps YOU should do some research first - I’d suggest the nearest Roget’s Thesaurus - before you stick your foot firmly in your mouth again.
September 4th, 2008
This is crap.
Google doesn’t “keep your facial recognition profile.”
Google’s Picasa program, which runs on YOUR OWN computer, keeps the profiles. You’ve offered NO evidence that the “profiles” are sent to Google’s servers.
The only thing going to Google are tags going to Google about who is in a photo.
And that, as mentioned above already, is no more of a privacy concern than Picasa users manually tagging people, or using tools on MySpace, Facebook, etc. to do the same.
September 4th, 2008
“Google’s Picasa program, which runs on YOUR OWN computer, keeps the profiles. You’ve offered NO evidence that the “profiles” are sent to Google’s servers.”
This is actually implemented in Picasa’s Web Albums, not the desktop Picasa.