The name is PimEyes and has a monthly cost of $ 29.99 ($ 142 at today’s price). This is a facial recognition software that, after uploading a photo, searches the Internet for images of the same person. And, according to the New York Times report and confirmed by Digital Gaze, it is very accurate.
At the NYT tests, several members of the journalism team presented photos of themselves at the tests. PimEyes found photos that they forgot existed, or that they didn’t even know had been taken once.
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One of the journalists is seen dancing at an art museum event more than a decade ago, and another is crying after receiving a marriage proposal: she didn’t like this last photo, but the photographer was using to advertise your business on Yelp. .
A tech journalist was found at the 2011 Coachella Music Festival among a crowd. A correspondent appeared in multiple wedding photos and, in a blur, a photo taken at an airport in Greece.
The search worked even in the case of a person wearing sunglasses in the photo presented, looking sideways, wearing a mask or with a beard, finding photos without a beard (more on that at the end).
privacy concern
PimEyes works by uploading a photo and clicking on a box, stating that the photo is yours. Although several times the site is said to be for personal use only, there is no brake beyond this box, the honesty of an anonymous person on the internet. Nothing really prevents the user from uploading images of other people.
The program does not scan social media, but opens sites such as news pages, forums, photographers’ albums and, most worryingly, pornographic sites.
The idea, according to the company, is to be on the right side: to help a person find the misuse of their own image and eliminate it. In theory, this can be used against, in one example they give, revenge pornography, to remove abusive content from the air. But it can also be used by one person to find unwanted photos of another person.
In fact, one of the stories raised by the NYT was that of computer engineer Cher Scarlett. In 2005, at the age of 19, she broke up and auditioned for the porn industry. He hated her and immediately gave up on the idea. But through PimEyes, he discovered that his images were still in the air.
In the same facial recognition program, he discovered that there was an option to delete photos: the PROTect premium plan that cost up to $ 299.99. “It’s basically an extortion,” she says, who paid for the most expensive plan.
According to the NYT, PrimEyes claimed to have returned the money to Scarlett and noted that there is a free plan to remove images, but it is a bit difficult to find. In solidarity with Ukraine, the company also blocked Russian users.
My facial recognition test
The platform allows a free trial of a simplified survey. When I uploaded a photo of myself, I found some profile pictures on public websites and several versions of a photo I had uploaded to Reddit in 2020.
What happened then was that my dog ate his glasses and I had to do a puzzle to see with just a lens. I ended up with a Dragon Ball skin, which was a level above 9k.
No wonder this image goes viral. And it looks a lot like the photo I posted, with the same beard and the same hair that I still wear today.
The surprise was at the bottom of the list, where he found a “potentially explicit” photo (it’s a false positive, of someone handsome, seemingly shirtless singer; my music career is limited to karaoke).
And most amazing of all: a real photo of me from 2009, without a beard, with a mustache painted in pencil for a June party (it’s the one in the lower left corner). If you presented me with my photo today in 2009, I don’t think you would recognize me.
Tests with other photos again showed a mountain of my Dragon Ball meme and some obvious false positives, people who don’t even look like me (unlike the mysterious singer).
The free trial does not show the links where the photos were found and shows them in a blurry way so you can’t reverse the search. Clicking on them will take you to a screen asking you to sign. It’s not hard to agree that if you find a problematic photo (I didn’t), it could end up looking like an extortion.
PrimEyes works mainly on the website. There is an app for Android, but as an APK (an installation file not authorized by the official store). Since the address is obvious to anyone looking for the PrimEyes name, we’ll leave the link right on the home page – it’s here. Please note that the search for others violates the terms of use of the site and could end up in court, and we cannot be held responsible for the results of a third party site.
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