Photo Tagging as a Privacy Problem?

An anonymous reader writes "The Harvard Law Review, a journal for legal scholarship, recently published a short piece on the privacy implications of online photo-tagging (pdf). The anonymously penned piece dourly concludes that 'privacy law, in its current form, is of no help to those unwillingly tagged.' Focusing on the privacy threat from newly emergent automatic facial recognition search engines', like Polar Rose but not Flickr or Facebook, the article states that 'for several reasons, existing privacy law is simply ill-suited for this new invasion.' The article suggests that Congress create a photo-tagging opt-out system, similar to what they did with telemarketing calls and the Do-Not-Call Registry." How would you enforce such a registry, though?

"remove tag"

I didn't RTFA, admittedly, but there's a "remove tag" link on Facebook. A lot of people I know use it, and just ask their friends not to tag them. It does the job well enough. And if that doesn't do it, there are privacy settings that can prevent anyone other than yourself or a specific group of people (friends/network/etc) from seeing the photos.

Re:"remove tag"

Facebook notifies you in your mini-feed whenever you are tagged, and also emails you if you set it up to do so (as I do).
I've untagged photos of myself before. Unless someone were to place these photos on, say, flickr, where I have no presence, I can control when I am tagged.

In the information-rich anarchy of the web, privacy is a dying hope. Anywhere you can be seen in public can be recorded, labelled, stored, distributed, and more. It's possible to hide, but it's getting harder.

Re:"remove tag"

This is nasty. It's like junk mail. Never ceasing, always something you have to keep an eye out for, and something that ultimately, you have to resolve, day in and day out. I can see this being an even bigger problem - what if you have no involvement at all with any of these services, but others that you know, do- they tag a picture with your name, and you'd have no way of knowing.

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With that kind of friends, who needs enemies?

I really hope my friends aren't stupid enough to put pictures of me on the Internet without asking me first. Never mind tagging them with my name. I would never put an image of another person on a public web wi

I was under the assumption

that when you posted something, especially photos, on the internet it was no longer private.

Re:I was under the assumption

Unless of course someone else posted the photo without your permission.

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If you're that worried about people seeing a picture of you, then don't leave your house. Personally, I don't see the BFD

Re:I was under the assumption

The big fucking deal isn't the picture itself, but the connection of the picture with your name. I don't mind that unknown people can find pictures with my unlabeled self in the frame by poking around websites relevant to my hobbies. I DO mind, however, if a simple search for my real name can present the searcher with a look into my private life because some "friend" feels it necessary to catalogue the names of everyone in their photos.

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Yup a still frame gives good insight into somebody's private life. If it's not something you want people to see, then I reiterate my previous point, DON'T TAKE A PICTURE OF IT.

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And the previous point will be re-iterated... What if someone else takes the picture?

You must have remarkable restraint if you've never done anything that might be embarrassing were someone to take a picture of it and show, say, your boss, your wife, your

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Yup a still frame gives good insight into somebody's private life.

I didn't say "insight." I said "a look." Frankly, nobody has the right to either without one's consent, implicit or express.

If it's not something you want people to see, then I reiterate

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I DO mind, however, if a simple search for my real name can present the searcher with a look into my private life because some "friend" feels it necessary to catalogue the names of everyone in their photos.

The article proposes a registry of people who want

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The article proposes a registry of people who want to be excluded from automatic (machine) tagging, based on face recognition software; It's not proposing that we limit your friends' free speech rights.

Indeed, but I was responding to someone who'd obvious

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As it should be. My point was that a friend's freedom of speech to provide unwelcome public identification would likely bring my freedom of association into play, assuming the person in question wasn't willing to remove my real name from Flickr. Or, in thi

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Your making a pun, but you're not seriously suggesting that there's a relevant contradiction between the freedom of association (freedom to hang out with people, or even to NOT hang out with people, for that matter,) and the freedom of speech here...

Right

Re:I was under the assumption

This is an interesting double edged sword because it the argument that actors have been fighting for years! Essentially actors want the ability to say you can't take a picture of me in public. Yet right now the court ruling is that once you are in public then there is no expectation of privacy. In the UK they said reasonable (eg against voyeurism), but beyond that you are in the public and people can take pictures. So if you now post to the Internet the same thing is allowed. This is why I don't publish to public services. I have my own server with name and password and I share with family and friends. Beyond that nothing. Frankly its people's own fault that they were too short sighted and too cheap to not take better precautions.

So if you argue that there is no name tagging then there is no right to take pictures of actors, politicians, etc. The law is about the general public not individual situations.

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Frankly its people's own fault that they were too short sighted and too cheap to not take better precautions.

Such as? Seriously - when this notion "you have no expectation of privacy if you're out in public," became commonly accepted, I doubt seriously the

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I DO mind, however, if a simple search for my real name can present the searcher with a look into my private life because some "friend" feels it necessary to catalogue the names of everyone in their photos.

Be more careful with your friends then.

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Be more careful with your friends then.

Well, it hasn't happened yet, if that's any indication. Oddly enough, I'm not that close with anyone unconcerned with privacy. Exhibitionists, in my experience, are generally exhibitionists because their lives are

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s. I DO mind, however, if a simple search for my real name can present the searcher with a look into my private life because some "friend" feels it necessary to catalogue the names of everyone in their photos.

So ask your friend to remove it.

A while ago

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So ask your friend to remove it.

That's what I'm advocating, yes. Disagreeing with a replier to the main article does not denote approval of the article's content.

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if a simple search for my real name can present the searcher with a look into my private life because some "friend" feels it necessary to catalogue the names of everyone in their photos.

You and the other poster seem to think that you're arguing about wheth

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Alas even if it was done without your permission, it does not make it 'unpublic' anymore.

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Don't laugh at this, I'm being dead serious:

Register the image of your face as a Servicemark. Sue anyone who tries to post it without your permission. "Defend" your mark by not letting arbitrary people take your picture. (I would say Trademark, but in m

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That's actually an interesting and important conundrum. [slashdot.org]

Simply put..

If you enjoy privacy, don't put your personal information (including pictures of yourself) on the internet. What's so hard about that?

Not so simple

Random other person X takes a picture of you. Maybe you were standing in a public place and didn't know your picture was being taken. Person X uploads the photo and tags it with your name. Other than spending your entire life outside of publicly-viewable p

Re:Not so simple

Outside of celebrities and political figures, whose lives are public anyway, the chances of a random person taking a photo of you and posting it on the internet tagged with your name are astronomical.

Worst case, send the host a letter demanding the removal of your name from the image tag. State that it is a risk to your health and safety. Most people, not wanting to be at risk of criminal negligence, will comply.

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and posting it on the internet tagged with your name are astronomical.

Random person posting your picture on the internet, plus random someone else tagging said picture once its on the internet with your name is less so.

Especially once you realize that we'r

Re:Not so simple

You know, all of a sudden I gain a whole new understanding of why some women willingly wear a burka.

I can see a whole new fashion genre being driven by our emerging everpresent surveillance and recording. When will ThinkGeek get a 'privacy enhanced clothing' section?

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Random other person X takes a picture of you. Maybe you were standing in a public place and didn't know your picture was being taken. Person X uploads the photo and tags it with your name.

How does X know who you are?

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My associates and I make out livings photographing and videotaping people in public places, labeling the images with their respective names and the location the image was acquired in, uploading portions onto the internet, and selling the ultimate result by

Re:Simply put..

We're not talking about self-tagged images here. What happens is that Bob, which you barely know ran around taking pictures at some social gathering. Maybe he's one of those friends who likes to make "party pictures". Then Bob uploads those pictures to myspace or facebook or whatever, and tag them with the names of the people present. Then suddenly you find a picture of yourself in a pirate hat drinking an unspecified liquid with the subtitle "Drunken pirate" and don't get your teaching degree or whatever.

I mean among friends this wasn't exactly unusual in the paper days. You have a picture from the New Year's Eve party, flip it over and it says "Joe, Bob and Anne drinking champagne". The trouble comes when this isn't some private photo album, it's something published and tagged and tracable to you. And unlike other info online you can pretty easily tell if this is the same guy you're considering hiring or not. Of course, you might say it's only the truth or whatever. But if you haven't done anything in your life you'd not very proud off like getting completely drunk and... well then you haven't lived enough.

The solution: SPAM

The solution I prefer over restricting access to information is flooding everybody with information. OK, there will be pictures of you doing something stupid. So what? There will be pictures of everybody doing something stupid.

The only advantage I can see to restricting information is that people can keep their hypocritic attitudes. With the flooding solution, attitutes will need to change.

I guess this is why Congress attacks picture labeling, rather than the kind of privacy information that really matters, such as shopping habbits. The later just re-inforses the corporate hold over the citizens, while the prior threatens the micture of hyporacy and pre-judices commonly known as "family values".

Re:Simply put..

Well don't act like a drunken pirate! And if a company is not willing to overlook a simple once in a while drunken pirate situation then you obviously don't want to work for the company. Or if you are more often than not the drunken pirate, well then you have a problem.

I think the bigger problem is that people have to come face to face with hypocrisy. I remember when I was a kid in highschool (late 80's) there were teenagers that would be so nice and honorable to certain people. And then be the biggest bully to other people. People regularly were hypocritical and because there is no tape rolling or picture being snapped people could always talk themselves out of the tough situations. Now those excuses don't cut it anymore because, well there is proof to the contrary. And now the teenager that was so nice in one situation and bully in another has been outed.

I personally could never play the one face to one crowd and another face to another crowd game and I am glad it is over. AND I am glad it is over for others. Let's see, police beatings where people said it never happen, politicians insulting people taping them when they said oh it was not so bad, the list goes on!

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This is an extremely Slashdot reader type of reply. Modded up to boot. You see the world much too black & white, from a very engineering guy sorta perspective.

If a company is not willing to overlook a simple drunken pirate situation you didn't want t

Re:Simply put..

Well don't act like a drunken pirate! And if a company is not willing to overlook a simple once in a while drunken pirate situation then you obviously don't want to work for the company. Or if you are more often than not the drunken pirate, well then you have a problem.

That'd be a fantastic idea if photos were somehow truth the way people think they are. We have this cultural idea that a photo is a cold, unlying thing. Of course, if Bob the party photographer only takes photos at paries, his photos tell a very different story than Dave, the guy you work with that only takes photos of you at work. Or how about your Grandmother that only takes photos at family gatherings?

Saying "Well don't act like a drunken pirate!" is a gross oversimplification of the situation. Who gets to pick the story that the prosecution tells when you are drug into court over something maybe related and maybe unrelated? Do you think they are going to be honest to the jury and let them know that there's more to the story?

Re:Simply put..

You know, that Jack Skellington image you have up at http://dteichman.deviantart.com/ [deviantart.com] will probably get you into trouble. Disney is particularly lawyer-happy these days, and you seem to be in Orange County so you're also covered under California law. Hope none of the hundreds of thousands of people who look at this story feel like turning you in...

But I'm sure you're covered by your domain's tech contact, "Angel of Hell, Satan [e-mail]". (Admin contact at 1834 E Hallandale Beach Blvd, Hallandale Beach, FL 33009 [google.com]. Can't wait for the Google Street View.)

From your blog: "We all have the freedom to do what ever we want, to think what ever we want, and be what ever we truly want to be. I feel that we need to exercise this privilege more often.... I think every person needs to either shut up or prove their point dead cold and if they can't they need to be enlightened on how stupid they are being. If you have something to say, say it then move on or try and prove your point, but don't drone on like a preacher about something not many people even really want to hear about. I am a strong believer in torture, rather than humane execution. This is the rule of The Red Death. Don't like it? FUCK YOU!"

See ya later, Red Death. And remember, if you enjoy privacy, don't put your personal information on the internet. What's so hard about that?

ps: If you wrote "Frankly i'm disapointed with my personal endurance psychological and physical over the past month and have gotten fed up and angry. Fuck you all in the pisshole with a sharpened and spiny knife", you may be a psychopathic time-bomb in waiting. Try not to kill anybody!

Re:Simply put..

Well, admittedly, torture-loving Daniel Teichman of Orange County is only 16 at the moment, so I'm sure his grossly immature attitude will come back to haunt him when he's 18 or 19 and looking for a job. Oh, and please don't bother his father, Dore Teichman. He's a performance engineer for IBM in Miami--we wouldn't want to disturb him simply because his son was being obnoxious. And BTW, isn't it some sort of crime to put false information in a domain registry listing? Sure would hate for someone to go after Daniel Teichman for that.

Well, here's a thought...

I am by no means trolling here, when I say that if someone doesn't want their picture floating around on the Internet, don't send it into the tubes. As far as I am concerned, once it has gotten there, the horse has left the barn.

As for laws that would deal with some kind of do-not-tag list, that is just damned stupid. Yes, somehow, magically all of these photohosting sites are going to be able to use facial recognition and ensure that someone else's photo doesn't have you somewhere in it? Facial recognition, from what I am hearing, is coming along, but it is nowhere near "that ready".

Personally, I am going out on a limb here, I see two options: one is that since most photos of people of teh interwebs is self-posted, simply have an option chosen at registration that says something to the effect of "do you wish other users to tag your photos?" and have a radial button beside yes/no. Or even a photo-level option, so that upon uploading and posting a photo it asks a similar question.

My other idea is decidedly less kind to those who get their photo posted: don't let other people take your picture. yes folks, you don't really need your photo taken, and it can be done with out looking like a party pooper. Volunteer to take the picture.

People have to start learning about technology, and the consequences of society's use of it. Imagine if people knew that posting that picture of them underage drinking at a high school bash on MySpace is going to get them in deep doo doo. Or that what they type can be used against them. Or that they shouldn't just post their personal details for all to see (including extra-marital affairs.... something I have seen several times) With action comes consequence... here endeth the lesson.

Now, for those who might start pointing their fingers at me, saying that "they are talking about people who get caught on camera without knowing it, like the bikini-clad Stanford co-ed students on Google Earth and such!" To that, I would say, you can't see a single identifying feature about them. And if you did get a picture taken by Google Earth that could be used to identify you (and let us face it, that number would be small indeed), if you were outside, you really have no reasonable expectation of privacy in such a situation.

Just my 2c...

Sometimes...

Sometimes the right solution to a problem isn't a new law. I confess I'm not sure what the right solution is (it might be "ignore it," or it might not), but I don't think it's a new law...

Too early to pass laws

We have a plenty of current privacy concerns to worry about - unwanted indexing of old postings, surveillance cameras, abuse of SSNs and credit card purchase histories. Let facial recognition software become useful before we legislate it, otherwise the law will likely be both incomplete and overreaching due to lack of experience. Certainly, there should be no restrictions on people indexing their private photo libraries without asking for anyone's permission.

"They may not like what they see."

"Although Catherine Bosley received attention because of her public career, the lesson of the story is applicable to anyone: when employers or others have easy access to our most personal information, they may not like what they see."

-- TFA

I'm trying to figure out, "What is it about this quotation that's bothering me?"

There's something that bugs me about this whole thing; Like we're ashamed of who we are, or like we're trying to keep ourselves safe from all the judgmental people out there, or like we don't have the courage to tell people, "Hey, this is how I have a good time, and you just have to deal with it."

I can't quite put my finger on it...

I think it has something to do with my ideas about how social progress is made. I think that, when, as a people, we're hiding and squirreling away the realities in our lives, from "the public," I think we're doing a disservice to the world. When people catch our private lives, and we have to say, "Well, you know what? Screw you all- THIS IS OKAY, and here's why" -- we find ourselves unwitting social activists.

We may have spent all our lives hating social activists, and bitterly spitting, saying, "Just keep it private," but now, something is exposed, and we have to start talking to people.

I think that's something of how progress is made, in society. I think a genuinely tolerant and compassionate society is not made of a bunch of people putting blinders over their eyes.

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On the contrary, I think you put your finger on it very well.

Yeah it's been said already before

If you don't want people seeing your junk, you don't hang your junk out your trunks when you go to the mall.

If you don't want people seeing your junk online, don't hang your junk out on myspace where everyone can search for it and see it.

Instead of governm

What about the "international" problem of the web?

Well, we all know how well those "do not call" lists work. I still get those calls (but strangely they hang up when I ask what institute they call for... strange, ain't it?), despite being on "the list".

But that's not even the problem. The problem is the s

What expectation of privacy do you have?

If you willingly let yourself get photographed, and someone puts it up on Flickr with your name on it - how can you expect privacy? Same as if you are photographed walking down a street - where is the violation of your privacy?

I can stop my Website from being indexed

...with robots.txt [wikipedia.org] but not stop my face being indexed. Something's wrong here.

To the other posters who say "don't post your pictures online": I never have; never will; never gave permission; yet e.g. Google image search shows several pictures of me post

Unnecessary and Unconstitutional

Not only is this suggestion a really bad idea it seems pretty obviously unconstitutional. Rather than giving any serious consideration to the question of whether likenesses of ourselves taken in public deserve protection the paper reads more like something a student would write trying to create an impressive paper. After all everyone realizes that our loss of privacy is a bad thing so lets propose changing the law to fix it, right?

Sure, our loss of anonymity can have some harmful consequences as the anecdotes in the paper illustrate but this doesn't mean they can't convey important information. I mean on first glance the story about the republican congressman whose daughter was seen kissing another girl on facebook might appear to illustrate a harm of our loss of privacy, and it certainly was a harm to the congressmen, but I would argue it was actually a benefit to society. If that congressman didn't get elected because people found out what he was really like (more tolerant than they suspected) then it was a win for the country.

Ultimately all this technology does is let us effectively say who did what when. Surely it wouldn't be right or constitutional to ban the news media from telling us about the picture of the congressman's daughter. Nor is it acceptable to outlaw any particular act of saying who is in what picture, that is quite squarely inside the domain of free speech. Yet if free speech protects my right to tag each individual photo then it would be a very troubling precedent to set to say it doesn't protect my right to organize those tags in an accessible way. I mean just think of the problems you would get into just trying to catalog the CSPAN archive to indicate which congressmen were doing what when.

More generally while the short term effect of a loss of anonymity in public might be immediate harms in the long term we will eventually discover that everyone does stupid shit and crosses sexual and religious lines. Hopefully the ultimate effect of this loss of anonymity will be to eliminate the double standard which allows everyone to say swears, have naughty/kinky sex, and make blasphemous/non-PC remarks but gives any public official caught doing it hell.

Of course it is scary to lose a protection that has kept us safe for so long but the truth of the matter is that anonymity in public is eroding no matter what we do about it. We can either choose to embrace the good consequences along with the bad by allowing search engines and tagging sites that set up a level playing field for everyone or we can choose a system where those with enough money and lawyers get to keep their anonymity while the rest of society does not. However, that's the worst of all options because it isn't really the loss of anonymity that's harmful but the unequal loss of anonymity. If someone at your office finds pictures of just you getting drunk and doing stupid thats awful, if they can find pictures of a large fraction of the employees it's just amusing.

--

Note: purposeful anonymous commentary, e.g., anonymous blogs, are a totally different subject and should be preserved.

Panoramio acquired by Google...

For the paranoiacs, Paronamio has been acquired by Google [blogspot.com] this week (more info here [gearthblog.com]).

"if companies like Flickr keep an e-mail address for those seeing their photos online"
You haven't mentioned it, but I guess you already know about FlickrMap [flickr.com]. Flickr is par