Giorgi Gobronidze, owner of PimEyes, a face-searching website that uses an artificial intelligence-based facial recognition system to find images of people on the web, says website users should be more ethical about your way of looking for photos.
According to Gobronidze, the “ethical use” of the photo search site means that users only have to look for their own faces or the faces of those who have given their consent to such searches, reports The New York Times ( must be subscribed).
PimEyes has become quite popular as a facial recognition search engine, helping people find photos of themselves that have been posted online in seconds. The site captures results from blogs, news articles, wedding photo galleries, review sites, or pornographic sites, but not from social networking websites.
PimEyes, which has changed management since its inception in 2017, is now full of controversy over how to search for photos on the site. This is because it is said that there are no specific or strong control mechanisms established by the company to regulate the photo search process.
The article cites the example of Cher Scarlett, a computer engineer who came face to face with bitter experience a couple of months ago, after finding photos of herself in circumstances she may not have liked to remember: photos of ‘a porn audition scene with Scarlett. years ago.
A search on PimEyes showed the photos, with Scarlett saying she had not the slightest imagination that they could be anywhere on the internet.
He says that as part of his efforts to find a way to take these photos off the web, he had to subscribe to PimEyes’ “PROtect plans” where users can take unwanted photos from external links with the help of PimEyes help service. This did not resolve your issue either, as photos continued to appear in more searches. In addition, it costs between $ 90 and $ 300 a month, which leads Scarlett to call it “extortion.”
In response, Gobronidze, however, tells The Times that the site is built with other tools that can allow users to prevent their photos from appearing on the website’s photo search index. Here, he mentions a free tool that can be used to clear search results from the PimEyes index, as well as a “deactivation” feature that allows you to remove data from the site, including search results for facial images that they want to get out. .
Scarlett finally used the opt-out feature and received an email from PimEyes in April saying “Your potential results containing your face are being removed from our system.”
Despite this, the Times reveals that he tried to look for Scarlett’s face weeks later and found about 100 search results with her photos, including some from the porn audition scene.
Gobronidze, in reaction to this, argues that the “exclusion” option does not prevent the face from being searched, but blocks the photos with a high level of similarity in the PimEyes search results index. For this reason, in a blog post about the deactivation feature, the company advises those who use it to submit “multiple deactivation requests with different photos.”
The company says there are more protections under development, but it will take time.
In the midst of this, biometrics experts say they believe that PimEyes needs to do more than it is currently doing to enforce the ethical use of the facial recognition website, probably requiring search engines to identify themselves with government-issued IDs. or by biometrics.
In an email response to the Biometric Update on the subject, John Gunn, CEO of Token, a provider of biometric identification technology, wrote: ” searches only on the person requesting the search .. They may simply require users to send their driver’s license, passport, or other photo ID, to verify with a digital identity guarantee provider. like Mitek or Jumio, and then use their own technology to narrow down the search. “
Gunn, whose experience also includes innovation and the experience of laptops in digital identity, fraud prevention and identity and access management, adds: “If banks can lend thousands of dollars just with photo ID, “PimEyes can also easily adopt this cheap technology. Its current approach is calling for government intervention and regulation.”
PimEyes announced the launch of an affiliate program this month with the goal of publicizing its facial recognition service.
Article topics
biometric identification | biometrics | commercial applications | facial biometrics | face photo | facial recognition PimEyes | privacy | Token