Face Recognition App Taking Russia By Storm May Bring End To Public Anonymity (theguardian.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Anonymity in public could soon become a thing of the past. A service called FindFace allows users to photograph people in a crowd and work out their identities with 70% reliability. It works by comparing photographs to profile pictures on Vkontakte, a social network popular in Russia and the former Soviet Union, with more than 200 million accounts. In future, the designers imagine a world where people walking past you on the street could find your social network profile by sneaking a photograph of you, and shops, advertisers and the police could pick your face out of crowds and track you down via social networks. In the short time since the launch, FindFace has amassed 500,000 users and processed nearly 3m searches.The Newsweek wrote about this app last month. The publication reported on an abuse of the app in which porn stars and sex workers were targeted. Some wanted to use FindFace for the purpose of "outing" these sex workers to their families and social media contacts.

Comments

Everybody put on a Putin Mask!

[Anonymous Coward]

And stick it to the man!

Re:Service

[aicrules]

Or just leave both of them alone if they are both consenting adults. Just because I wouldn't be one or use one doesn't mean I need to go "exposing" those that do.

A Change in Society

[KermodeBear]

With the ability of technology to do these kinds of things, society is going to be changing. But which direction will it go?

Will we become a more repressed society, afraid to engage in activity that other people don't approve of? A society where we share as little as possible with others out of fear?

Or will society become "anything goes," where people accept that everyone has a past that may not be pretty, and people may engage in activities that we may not appreciate? After all, that camera could be pointed towards us - who are we to judge?

Re:A Change in Society

[Sir_Eptishous]

With the ability of technology to do these kinds of things, society is going to be changing. But which direction will it go?

Will we become a more repressed society, afraid to engage in activity that other people don't approve of? A society where we share as little as possible with others out of fear?

Or will society become "anything goes," where people accept that everyone has a past that may not be pretty, and people may engage in activities that we may not appreciate? After all, that camera could be pointed towards us - who are we to judge?

I imagine it will be both.

People who need to maintain their "reputation" will need to be even more self-censoring than they were before. This will create a world(and it is already going this way) where anything you say, or do, any way you react to something, body language, facial expression, what videos you watch, books you read, music you listen to, things you post, etc will be recorded, analyzed and codified. A Police State that couldn't have been dreamed of by Orwell.

Then again, there will be those with the need for a "streecred" type of reputation will do the opposite, and perpetuate their badassness...

Eventually, there will be a corporate(Facebook) way of ranking people, which will impact us all in ways we don't even fathom.

Those who don't need to maintain their "reputation" won't need to worry about it, either because they will have absolutely no financial stake in anything(where most people will end up) or they will be so wealthy that it won't matter.

In some aspects of how human society is going, it reminds me of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", where to hide among the "converted" humans(Social Media-ized), non-converted humans had to hide their humanness.

We are also seeing how the politicization and polarization in the First World is creating a more "us vs them" reality, and we also see that geographically, people of the same class/race/political view are "self balkanizing", meaning different groups don't mingle as much anymore, never see each other, live in separated areas, etc;

Re:A Change in Society

[Jason Levine]

People who need to maintain their "reputation" will need to be even more self-censoring than they were before. This will create a world(and it is already going this way) where anything you say, or do, any way you react to something, body language, facial expression, what videos you watch, books you read, music you listen to, things you post, etc will be recorded, analyzed and codified.

Or people will learn to self-moderate their online interactions the same way they self-moderate public face-to-face interactions. When I post something online, I think "Would I say this to a room filled with my wife, parents, friends, relatives, boss, co-workers, and (depending on the topic) my children?" If the answer is "No", I don't post it. If the answer is "yes", I go ahead and post it. Too many people will post a ten paragraph screed against their coworkers on Facebook and then act surprised when their boss finds it.

Sad next step

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

If there is to be a panopticon, the only sensible next step is to make sure everybody has access, not just government.

Re:Privacy depends on anonymity

[geek]

I don't follow you. I'm very private, keeping most of my life to myself. I have coworkers who see me all day every day and in some ways see me more than my own family. They know almost nothing about my private life though. I'm not anonymous but I am quite private.

I've never followed this logic that you have to be anonymous to be private. It just logically fails on every level. Why bother with encryption if you're anonymous? If you're not anonymous encryption keeps you private (when done correctly). Frankly anonymity appears to be a myth. It just does not seem to exist in reality.

A Scanner Darkly

[ThatsNotPudding]

Or more likely: Middle Eastern style head coverings are about to become universal.

Re: Basically if you ever posted social media self

[GrumpySteen]

You're assuming that people aren't hypocrites who will look down on other people for doing the same things that they do. Just one look at the number of rabidly homophobic politicians and religious leaders who turned out to be having gay sex on the side should be more than enough to prove that assumption is wildly wrong.

Re:Basically if you ever posted social media selfi

[JaredOfEuropa]

Something shady like visiting a bar, going to a drunken dorm blowout, picking up some (legal) weed or (legal) porn, visiting the "wrong" political rally, and so on. It's one thing if you bump into a colleague in the dodgy rubber fetish section at the videostore, it's quite another if your current and future friends, family, employers, interested law enforcement officers can place you there until the end of time.

Re:And wearing a mask is illegal (in Minnesota)

[CimmerianX]

1) found my own church.
2) Commandment 1 - Thou shalt not expose your face in public. ....
Now I'm legit because covering my face is my religious belief.

 

Re:Privacy depends on anonymity

[Jason Levine]

On the bright side, it will be a great help to those of us who have difficulty remembering people's faces.

Now:
Person I Should Know: "Hi, Jason. How are you doing?"
Me: "Fine... um... you. How are you?"

Soon:
Person I Should Know: "Hi, Jason. How are you doing?"
FindFace On Google Glass: "This is John Smith. He works for XYZ Corp and last e-mailed you about the Sprockets project."
Me: "Fine, John. How's that Sprockets project going?"

Re:Service

[twotacocombo]

If one of them is married, though, there's a third, non-consenting adult involved, who deserves to know - and if there are people who feel like exposing this kind of thing,

Then those people need to mind their own god damn business. Society only works when there is a certain level of anonymity and trust in your fellow strangers. If we can't leave our houses and do the things that are human nature (no matter how much you may disagree with them) without fear of someone willfully destroying your life, then we no longer live in a free society. You might as well go back in time and live in East Germany if you want your neighbors all up in your shit, having to watch everything you say or do. Only this is scarier...the people doing it willingly, without the Stasi pulling the strings? No thanks.

Re:This is why

[neo-mkrey]

Stay in your mother's basement -- it's the only way to be sure.

Re:Basically if you ever posted social media selfi

[knightghost]

The biggest issue is probably longevity. Nothing gets deleted, and what's ok today is hounded tomorrow.

Re:Service

[jeffmflanagan]

Normally we learn to mind our own business when we live in high-population areas, so as to allow each other some privacy, but there will always be busybodies sticking their noses in other people's lives. Unfortunately that small group can now to much more damage than they once could.

Re:Service

[twotacocombo]

If my wife is not being honest with me, I want to know about it. If I'm not being honest with her, she wants to know about it. If you want to help increase people's ability to deceive their spouse while stepping out, that's your business. And if I want to do the opposite, that's my business. :D

Everyone has secrets. Maybe you should just trust your wife, and she should trust you, or you both can learn to deal with the alternatives. What if I told you I saw your wife banging the mailman last week, then you hauled off and killed her in a fit of rage? How is that going to make the world a better place? This sense of duty some people have to wreck other peoples lives in the pursuit of exposing the 'truth' makes me sick. Seriously people, if nobody's life is in danger, why inject yourself into the situation? And to be clear, I'm talking about strangers here. Friends and family do have more of a leg to stand on when doing things that affect others in their lives, but perfect strangers spying on others in order to expose them can go get right bent.