Comments on: Google Picasa’s facial recognition features take control of your identity

By: TimothyH

TimothyH — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 04:38:23 +0000

I’ve been trying to get Name Tags to sync from Picasa 3.6 to Picasa Web for almost four months now. The Google nitwits assigned to solve the sync process have proven to be beyond inept.

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Picasa/thread?tid=5d91440826a93db6&hl=en

After reading this, I’m thinking it may be a good thing that Picasa Web albums don’t work

By: anon

anon — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 21:05:13 +0000

“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.

By: Richard Tallent

Richard Tallent — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 13:49:35 +0000

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.

By: a non e mous

a non e mous — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 10:53:13 +0000

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.

By: ajd4096

ajd4096 — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 06:09:22 +0000

If you are going to write in English, please learn to write english.

It does not “beg the question” – it raises the question.

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 04:03:45 +0000

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.

By: cL0d

cL0d — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 02:26:30 +0000

Facebook does the same already.

By: Josh

Josh — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 22:20:24 +0000

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.

By: Allan Wind

Allan Wind — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 21:23:04 +0000

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.

By: Someone call a lawyer

Someone call a lawyer — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 20:13:18 +0000

Please tell me this is like some kind of stupid scare and that nothing this privacy breaking could ever be allowed on the internet