Google Aims To Cull Child Porn By Algorithm, Not Human Review

According to a story at VentureBeat, "Google is working on a new database of flagged images of child porn and abuse that can be shared with other search engines and child protection organizations. The database will help create systems that automatically eliminate that sort of content. ... If the database is used effectively, any flagged image in the database would not be searchable through participating search engines or web hosting providers. And maybe best of all, computers will automatically flag and remove these images without any human needing to see them." Here's the announcement.

Comments

I hope they really mean child

[Mal-2]

If they mean "all underage" and not just "blatantly children", good luck with that. There are no characteristics that will distinguish between 17 and 18, or even older. What is the software going to think of Kat Young, for example? What about models who are just small?

Also are they going to attempt to sort through drawings at all, considering they are legal in some jurisdictions and not others?

I sense false positives and angry models in Google's future.

Exactly - and how do you define underage?

[Viol8]

The age of consent in spain is 14, in the uk 16, in the USA 18 , so if there's a picture of a nude 15 or 17 year old in what country does it get to decided if its legal?

While this may be a laudable effort I have the sneaking feeling the USA once again will be pushing its legal system and morality onto the rest of the world.

Re:What is the point of this?

[dgatwood]

The goal is to eliminate the known child porn, not to decide what is or is not child porn. Presumably their database will come from law enforcement agencies. That said, your comment brings up a valid point—that you can't always tell what is or is not legal. Those photos of that Hollywood actress a few years ago were taken when she was only 17. The fact that she took them and sent them to her boyfriend doesn't change the fact that (assuming she wasn't lying to try to make the photos go away) possessing those photos is technically illegal under child porn laws.

This raises a more interesting question: Will it be possible for individuals to query that database? For example, if someone downloads a picture from somewhere and can't tell with certainty whether the girl is legal or not, could that person anonymously query the database to determine the legality of that photo? I mean, obviously the database would be incomplete, so lack of data does not necessarily indicate legality, but I could see something similar to virus scanners that periodically scan your porn collection against the child porn database and alert you to anything that shows up in that database so you can delete it. That would be a useful tool for staying on the right side of a law that is otherwise basically impossible to comply with (at least with any degree of certainty), particularly if it came with information describing how the age of the person in particular photo was determined and the level of certainty involved. For example, for a presumably legal photo, it might return "Over 18. Certainty: low. Reason: not found in database" or it might contain "Over 18. Certainty: high. Reason: Playboy affidavit" or anything in between.