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Facebook's Face Identification Project Is Accurate 97.25% of the Time

Posted by Soulskill on from the almost-as-good-as-the-NSA's-version dept.

kc123 tips news that 'DeepFace,' the software research project created by Facebook engineers to identify people in pictures, is now accurate 97.25% of the time. In other words, it's almost as good at recognizing faces as humans, who are able to determine whether two photos show the same person 97.53% of the time. The article says DeepFace reaches that level of accuracy "regardless of variations in lighting or whether the person in the picture is directly facing the camera." It continues, "DeepFace processes images of faces in two steps. First it corrects the angle of a face so that the person in the picture faces forward, using a 3-D model of an 'average' forward-looking face. Then the deep learning comes in as a simulated neural network works out a numerical description of the reoriented face. If DeepFace comes up with similar enough descriptions from two different images, it decides they must show the same face. ... The deep-learning part of DeepFace consists of nine layers of simple simulated neurons, with more than 120 million connections between them. To train that network, Facebook’s researchers tapped a tiny slice of data from their company’s hoard of user images—four million photos of faces belonging to almost 4,000 people."

13 of 149 comments (clear)

  1. Say goodbye by danknight48 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    To more of your privacy in the commercial world.
    "You've just been DeepFaced" But at least its all for a good cause, marketing and profits at the cost of our private lives!......

    1. Re:Say goodbye by gnupun · · Score: 4, Insightful

      When are they planning to connect face identification with the street/store surveillance cameras? Then they could know who is where anytime of the day unless you wear big hats, large sunglasses, fake beards etc.

    2. Re:Say goodbye by StripedCow · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Muslims are right: Burqa's are the way to go...

      --
      If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
    3. Re:Say goodbye by pr0nbot · · Score: 4, Funny

      Burqas are also handy for hiding one's stash of apo'strophe's.

  2. DeepFace by BisuDagger · · Score: 5, Funny

    It sounds like the next capital hill scandal. Fortunately for teenaged girls, their faces are always scrunched up and lips pursed, when they turn 25 and take a normal picture Facebook won't be able to recognize them.

  3. Privacy nutjobs take note by rodrigoandrade · · Score: 4, Informative

    Please notice that this feature can be disabled in you Facebook account options. I'm at work and can't access it right now but I know the option is there, which takes care of both auto tagging (i.e. DeepFace) and manual tagging (i.e. your friends tag you on photos).

    And It's not like your Facebook ID was issued when you were born, like your SSN or birth certificate. You willingly signed up for the service, so quit complaining about privacy bullshit, or quit using Facebook.

    1. Re:Privacy nutjobs take note by El_Muerte_TDS · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't have a facebook account. So how I can disable the option of my face being recognized and tagged by facebook in pictures uploaded by others?

    2. Re:Privacy nutjobs take note by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I never signed up to facebook. A number of my friends however did. They 'invited' me to join facebook by giving it my email address to facebook. It got a little insane with the facebook reminders so I 'unsubscribed'. In doing this, I created a hidden profile which is blacklisted.

      My friends upload images of me to facebook. Facebook cookies on my computer track me when I visit any page which has the facebook button on it. My email provider Yahoo may well be sharing information about me with facebook (without my knowledge). Eventually facebook will gather all the connecting pieces of information on me to have a face, an email, and a browsing (possible purchasing) history.

      Just because you can 'opt out' doesn't mean that they're not doing it anyway in the background. I'm not comfortable knowing that these people know more about me than I remember about myself.

    3. Re:Privacy nutjobs take note by coofercat · · Score: 4, Informative

      The problem is that person X who has never signed up for Facebook ends up in a picture with someone (Person Y) who did. No one yet knows who Person X is, and Person Y doesn't identify them, and has all the recognition/auto tag features turned off. Good thing too, because Person X looks like they're so drunk they've lost the ability to control their bowels and keep their clothes on properly.

      Rinse and repeat.

      Remember, facebook still runs the recognition on all photos - they use such information to surface the posts you might be most interested in. If you're in a few photos with Person X (even if unidentified), then Facebook still wants to surface your friends photos with Person X because (quite reasonably) you might be interested in them.

      Years late, someone identifies Person X. Now all pictures of Person X can be found by using Person X's name, even though they never signed up for Facebook.

      This is a specific case of the general concerns that always come out whenever there's a privacy/facebook story on slashdot. You don't even have to play the game to lose on Facebook.

    4. Re:Privacy nutjobs take note by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Facebook won't [at least, publicly] autotag you unless you actually have an account, because otherwise there's no account to associate your face with. They may well do this internally, but that information isn't available to users if so. Of course, someone else can create an account "on your behalf" and then those photos can be associated with that identity, and thus with one another; that's linked to your identity practically but not directly.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  4. Re:Fuck Facebook by sunderland56 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Fuck Facebook

    So, you're saying that "Deep Face" is a euphemism?

  5. Re:I am the 2.75% by Ozymandias_KoK · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...because they all look alike? I heard they were all really smart and know martial arts, too.

  6. Training the data by MobyDisk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I logged into Facebook for the first time in about 6 months, and it required me to authenticate myself by answering a series of questions about who was in each picture. It would display 3 pictures, each showing a square around a particular person, and it would ask who the person is. It was multiple choice.

    I wonder if this is how they confirm that the data is correct, to eliminate intentional errors. You can ask a person who doesn't own the picture and didn't tag it to confirm the person in there. By masking it as an authorization request you convince people who otherwise would not be involved in tagging to participate.