IT’S LIKE Google for faces and it’s scaring users everywhere.
PimEyes is a search engine powered by images – upload a selfie and watch it return photos of you from around the web.
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PimEyes crawls the internet for images containing a given face.
You can search the whole web for your face – and nothing will stop you from searching for someone else’s.
The company touts their effectiveness in spotting faces on their webpage: “In the results we display not only similar photos to the one you have uploaded to the search bar but also pictures in which you appear on a different background, with other people, or even with a different haircut.”
PimEyes is a free service but offers a paid tier for “deep searches” of faces – the company offers an opt-out form to have yourself scrubbed from the searches.
Facial recognition technology is an innovation that some have reservations about commercializing.
“The weaponization possibilities of this are endless,” a technology law and ethics expert told the The New York Times.
PimEyes is aware of the controversial nature of their business – the company says they do not store data and that all the results are generated from publicly available sites.
“PimEyes just provides a tool, and the user is obliged to use the tool with responsibility,” the company wrote in a blog.
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Facial recognition technology is already intertwined with law enforcement in the United States.
A man wrongfully ID’d by facial recognition technology considered accepting plea deal involving prison time for a crime he did not commit – software had deemed him a “high-profile” match for a felony offense.
He was arrested and imprisoned for ten days before he could provide an alibi.
“I could be talking to you from prison right now trying to explain my innocence,” he told Wired.
Facial recognition technology looks like a plane screaming down the runway before its finished being built – regulators aren’t sure what to do but takeoff is fast approaching.
Hopefully, governments get their arms around publicly available facial recognition tech before more people are wrongfully arrested, stalked or deepfaked.
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