A photographer is using Russia-made technology to highlight the potential privacy intrusions that can sprout from the unregulated use of facial recognition technology.
Yegor Tsvetkov used a standard digital camera to snap pictures of individuals on the subway in St. Petersburg, and then uploaded them to FindFace, a Moscow-made app that uses facial recognition technology to find individuals on Russia’s major social network, VKontakte. Tsvetkov made a photography project out of it, called “Your Face is Big Data”, and explained to The Guardian that the idea was to show how easy it is for technology to infringe on individuals’ privacy.
While there is no equivalent to FindFace on Facebook, the social media company has nevertheless faced its own controversies over privacy, with recent lawsuits alleging that its use of facial recognition technology violates the privacy laws of at least one state. While Facebook managed to win one such lawsuit, and photo-sharing service Shutterfly recently settled a similar one out of court, such controversies are likely to increase in number as facial recognition technology becomes more pervasive in every day life.
Meanwhile, in Russia, FindFace is already raising some eyebrows on VKontakte.
Source: The Guardian
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April 15, 2016 – by Alex Perala
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