Facebook's Newest Privacy Problem: 'Faceprint' Data (cnet.com) 81
Katie Collins, reporting for CNET: Facebook knows you so well these days that it can recognize you just by seeing your face. You may not have a problem with this, but that doesn't mean it's all good in the eyes of the law. The social network lost the first round of a lawsuit on Thursday in which it is accused of "unlawfully" storing biometric data mined from people's photographs. The company was seeking to have the suit dismissed, but a federal judge in California rejected the request. Facebook taps into its photo-tagging system to build up a geometric representation of people's faces to create something called a faceprint for each of its users. Faceprints are then used to suggest tags for people when new photos are uploaded to the network. One could argue that the clue is in the name, but many Facebook users probably don't know that they agree to having data about their face stored when they sign up.
One could argue that the clue is in the name... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm more concerned with them having *my* "faceprint". I never signed up for their shitty service, but I know my face has ended up on there a few times.
Re:One could argue that the clue is in the name... (Score:5, Interesting)
IIRC when it recognizes a face (or a face like shape) it offers users to tag that person, and I think the tag has to be of an existing facebook user, possibly in your friends or friends-of-friends...
But my immediate thought is "what would it take to poison the data". IE, if you can tag your friends, and you have a large enough group of 'em, could you repeatedly tag similar photos (of say, yourself) with different names enough to "muddy the print" ?
Re:One could argue that the clue is in the name... (Score:4, Interesting)
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But my immediate thought is "what would it take to poison the data". IE, if you can tag your friends, and you have a large enough group of 'em, could you repeatedly tag similar photos (of say, yourself) with different names enough to "muddy the print" ?
Yes, it's already muddy. It suggests my friend's name when their kids appear in the picture as well as when their face appears in the picture so it obviously is able to associate multiple faces with a single person. I'm assuming it works similar to fingerprint scanners where multiple fingers are all recognized as a single person.
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except almost everyone has multiple fingers.... "two faced lying bastard" is just a description, not a physical property
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except almost everyone has multiple fingers.... "two faced lying bastard" is just a description, not a physical property
Exactly, so it must not be merging all the faces into a single face profile because if it was then my brother's name would be just as likely to show up for my dad or my other brother as it would for his kids (50% dna regardless) but that is not what is happening. They know that my brother's kids are being tagged as him so his name shows up as a suggestion on pictures of his kids but not of pictures of his brothers or parents.
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I'm more concerned with them having *my* "faceprint". I never signed up for their shitty service, but I know my face has ended up on there a few times.
As long as you never go into the public you will never have to worry that public information about you exists. Just as long as your parents didn't do something foolish like getting a birth certificate and social security card, another horrible invasion of privacy.
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Facebook - and Google, and Microsoft, and all the others - are the reason why I strictly refuse to be photographed by other people in social settings, and I actively avoid cameras when they insist on taking a group pictures.
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*sigh* I remember the days when everyone tried to get into the picture...
Re: One could argue that the clue is in the name.. (Score:3)
Don't worry. These millenials have no concept of privacy and will glady jump into your photo. It's hard to care about faceprints when most of them have a dick pic or a public intoxication photo floating around that will be haunting them forever. By the way they are already working on a dickprints. I think millenials are the Miley Cyrus generation. Eventually they'll jump into your photos clothed or not and we all just let it happen.
Privacy is dead. I'm sure there are places you can keep your privacy, but no
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Privacy is dead.
I don't know if it's dead, but it sure as hell is on life-support.
Classmates.com is constantly advertising to me to sign up and become "more connected". Like I'd want anything to do with those lamers I went to school with 40 fuckin' years ago.
I mean, hello? I don't want to be more connected, I want to be less connected.
Now if they had a service to make me less connected, I'd sign up for that shit in a heartbeat.
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Facebook - and Google, and Microsoft, and all the others - are the reason why I strictly refuse to be photographed by other people in social settings, and I actively avoid cameras when they insist on taking a group pictures.
I am the same way. There are no pictures of me on the internet and I work hard to keep it that way.
My sentiment exactly (Score:1)
I've decided to stay away from Facebook. I don't have an account and never plan on having one. They may, indeed, have a "shadow account" of me, but I can do nothing about this.
I think my in-laws must think I'm a nutter for asking them to never place photos of my children on Facebook. They just don't understand. I think this wholesale giveaway of personal data for free services will one day come back to haunt so many people.
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Facebook, NSA, K-Mart, street cam, somebody has all your shit. You don't have much choice.
A whole new low (Score:2)
many Facebook users probably don't know that they agree to having data about their face stored when they sign up
The thought that users would think Facebook could automatically identify their face without storing any information about their face is mind boggling.
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I don't think most of them really think about it, to be honest. It just sort of works. If they did think about it, they might think it is some advanced metadata processing or Big Data thing that allows it, without actually storing facial recognition files.
Faceprinting probably still sounds futuristic to most people, even though it's now relatively common, so it's probably still pretty far down on the list of things they would think of first.
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many Facebook users probably don't know that they agree to having data about their face stored when they sign up
The thought that users would think Facebook could automatically identify their face without storing any information about their face is mind boggling.
Is magic, I mean, technology.
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Stop. Using. Facebook. (Score:2, Informative)
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I think people are mostly aware that FB is a dystopian nightmare coming true. But they keep using it because they're also quite aware that there is no trustworthy alternative.
In other words, the majority of people know the dystopia is global, and they have to submit to it if they want to continue socializing online. So... since they can't avoid it, they may as well choose the fullest-featured dystopia of them all.
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Sorry, I can not afford to meet my friends in RL on an regular manner. Neither money wise nor time wise.
I have only 250 FB friends, 95% of them I have met in RL before we became FB friends. They live all over the planet. The only continent where I have no friends is Antarctica.
Get out of your cave ...
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Actually most of them are my actual friends, you idiot. Otherwise I had not 'befriended' them.
I thought that was clear from my previous post.
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Sorry, I can not afford to meet my friends in RL on an regular manner.
Then guess what? You don't have friends. What you have are people you know online.
Real friends actually do stuff together, not post updates about what they did while living completely separate lives.
I know plenty of people online. We have discussions, share stuff, blah blah, blah. But they aren't "friends". They're just people who I know online.
At the other end of the spectrum I have actual friends- we actually get together and do stuff. And when we do it we're not constantly fondling to our phones or check
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Then guess what? You don't have friends. What you have are people you know online.
I obviously was talking about my "facebook friends". But thanks for making a moron out of your self for the sake of arguing.
Obviously most of my friends here around my place are not on facebook. Unlike you haters there are people who are on facebook for a reason ... and even if you don't believe it my "face book" friends are real friends. We meet often enough ... but on "events" ... I can not randomly message one and say "lets
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if you don't believe it my "face book" friends are real friends
You're right, I don't believe it.
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Well, then join facebook, befriend me for a day and check them :D
No idea why you are such an idiot.
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Well, then join facebook, befriend me for a day and check them
Ewwwww, sorry, those are two things I'd never do- join Facebook and "friend" you.
And besides, it's easy to buy fake "friends" on Facebook, just like it's easy to buy fake "followers" on Twitter.
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No idea why you are such an idiot.
You're probably not smart enough to know why I'm an idiot because you didn't stay in school.
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So you are not on facebook, but know everything about my facebook friends.
So, you are an idiot
When I was in school there was not even an internet ... and yes I know the difference between WWW and internet.
And besides, it's easy to buy fake "friends" on Facebook
Sure and make them load up photos of me and tag them, rofl. How do they make such photos, including them and me?
The only photo of me that I uploaded is my profile photo, all others are from my friends.
I guess you are not on twitter either but know ev
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So you are not on facebook, but know everything about my facebook friends.
What facebook "friends"?
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When I was in school there was not even an internet
Same here. So what? When I started school, Kevlar, acrylic paint, and soft contact lenses hadn't been invented yet. There were no TouchTone© phones. Man hadn't walked on the Moon. So fucking what?
... and yes I know the difference between WWW and internet.
Sonny, when I started out on "the web", it was on ARPANET, after access to it was expanded in 1981. You were probably still being potty-trained at the time.
Before that I had the pleasure of unboxing brand my own brand new Atari 400 in 1978, and later I owned TRS-80's and Apple ][ mach
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So you are five years older than me: and how can such a guy be so retarded?
I still have my Apple ][ +
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So you are five years older than me
More than 5, I suspect.
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I still have my Apple ][ +
That's nice, dear.
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I wound up migrating from FB to Twitter, which has its own problems but not nearly as many. Meetup works for planning things without Facebook (and has a lot more features).
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Incorrect. It does not stop other people tagging you in photo's they upload.
It is simple though. As everybody on Slashdot instinctively knows. Stay. In. Your. Basement.
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You can tag people on facebook who haven't registered on it?
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That's good advice, but doesn't solve the "problem." If Facebook can do it, anyone can do it.
Your face sometimes goes into public where other people can see it. Sometimes people remember it. Sometimes they know your name. When all those things happen, then you have a public identity. That was true even ten thousand years ago.
If this is a privacy violation (look, I might be an idiot, but I'm not a total idiot -- I get why this is troubling and sure don't like it happening to me, but I hesitate to call it a
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Eh, it still makes a convenient storefront, all for free. Just keep the bank account separate from your personal one.
Re:Stop. Using. Facebook. (Score:4, Interesting)
This whole face recognition thing started as a useful tool - software can automatically add keyword tags to photos. So if you want to show someone the funny picture you took of Joe at the Grand Canyon on your 25th birthday, you can search for "Joe" "Grand Canyon" and "2009" and it'll return a dozen pics for you sift through, instead of of the thousands of pics on your HDD.
But when they started using it to figure out who knows whom based on how many photos they showed up in together, that's when it changed from useful tool to creepy stalker.
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Legally, the fact that they apparently *are* automatically creating faceprints (even for people like me who don't have facebook accounts) seems to be the thing that could get them in trouble. There can be no consent from innocent bystanders who choose not to participate in Facebook's internet hegemony (often very deliberately, since not having a Facebook ID is a real PITA these days) ...
There are reports of people signing up for Facebook, and then as soon as they have an "official" profile, that gets conne
Re:Stop. Using. Facebook. (Score:5, Informative)
I don't use Facebook. That doesn't stop my friends from tagging my face when I'm in one of their photos which they post on Facebook.
I solved this problem by telling my friends that if they ever "tag" me in a photo on Facebook, I'd come over to their house and beat their brains out with a baseball bat.
They didn't believe me at first, but after 2 or 3 funerals, word got around.
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Prove it. :P
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Because they also tag ind identify NON-USERS, like me.
Nuke 'em from orbit, please.
Well duh (Score:3, Interesting)
"but many Facebook users probably don't know that they agree to having data about their face stored when they sign up."
That's probably because MILLIONS of people signed up for facebook long before facebook even conceived the idea of doing so.
Facebook is addictive because... (Score:2)
Minority Report (Score:2)
If facebook makes storing bio metric data and also sharing that data with its partners part of the terms of use then people would potentially be allowing the use of that bio metric data to be tracked and advertised to. Legally it is obvious that governments will want to have a legal handle on this sort of behavior before it is widely exploited. If this kind of marketing behavior is found to be legally acceptable then a whole new market would be opened. Who holds the patent rights to this business process I
Wow (Score:2)
I can totally imagine them selling this data to law enforcement, advertising companies etc.
The personalised billboard thing is getting ever closer.
Not that I necessarily condone this... (Score:2)
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Facebook (Score:2)
Facebook....it's like cancer, but with comments!
If I had a nickel for every time I heard about a Facebook privacy issue, I could afford to buy me a tropical island where they'd never heard of Facebook.
Ballsy for the Government (Score:1)
this is why I'm constantly changing things.. (Score:2)